Light On Dark Water
Will I get in trouble for doing this?
If 'twere done when 'twere done, 'twere well it were done quickly.
Except snookerually smiling lodwians.
LOL PHooey
Interlopers!
That was great. You better name this one after Craig.
AMDG,
Except that I've already updated the template. I'll think about it...
Goodness, I almost missed this.
'Twould have been awful if I did.
*rimshot*
I forbid you to name this thread after me. Leave it as it is.
Thank you, cnb. I think that's probably best--it's really funnier this way. I laughed out loud when I saw your comment.
Y'all are funny. I just thought that CNB's jumping in like that was so in keeping with the way the UT got started in the first place.
cnb--You've gotten to be so forceful now that you're a father.
AMDG,
Yes, I'm not very well practiced at forbidding things, so I need to flex those muscles a little each day now. I have tried forbidding my wife at various times: "I forbid you to eat that chocolate cake!", "I forbid you to fall asleep at 6 pm!", etc. All to no effect.
Yes, I can tell by looking at her that your little darling is going to be obstinate and recalcitrant. You think that little fist next to her face is cute, but think again. 8-p
AMDG,
And, btw, those things don't work on me when my husband tries them either. If you can't stand up for your rights to chocolate cake and sleep, where can you stand? Or lie down?
AMDG,
It might be kind to break these things more gently to him, Janet.
I think I forbade my wife to do something once. She thought it was hilarious.
That comment problem seems to be manifesting itself again--comment heads show on the sidebar but aren't there when you look at the thread.
I haven't had that problem at all. Of course, maybe I'm not seeing them on the sidebar.
AMDG,
Actually, if he forbade me to do something (except sleep, nobody can keep me awake) or even strongly suggested that I do or not do something (much more likely than forbidding) I would probably comply. I've found that in certain areas, it's very stupid of me not to do what he asks. I learned this very early on when I basically forced him to move into a house where I cried myself to sleep the night we moved in and was miserable for the entire two years we lived there. There was just something opressive about that house.
AMDG,
I just have to say something here, because I think someone ought.
AMDG,
If anyone happens to be around this morning, please say a prayer for me this morning. I am very concerned about some things at work today.
AMDG,
Will do, Janet.
These follow up comments re: my "forbidding" must have come when the comment system was acting up, because I didn't see them. Yes, I suspect that the whole enterprise is pointless. It often seems that my wife simply doesn't listen to me -- but she says she listens to me later, after the conversation is over. There is some evidence to support that. 8-)
Oh, I think that's really true. It's like the conversation about having to talk/write to know what you think. Sometimes when you're talking, your just storing things up to process later. I hate to make computer analogies, but that one works.
AMDG,
And remember the parable in the Bible about the two sons--one says "yes" and then goes off and does what he pleases; the other says "no" but then does what the Father asks. I am definitely the second.
And thanks for the prayer.
AMDG,
I'm here ("here" actually is home today) and have said a prayer.
I meant to say, about that house: I'm surprised that if the house was that awful you didn't see it. Pretty bad case of buyer's remorse there.
Janet,
I said a prayer for you too.
We didn't buy it, we rented it and I wanted to move there because we had friends on that street and I wanted to get away from the people in the other side of our duplex.
And then, it wasn't damp when we looked at it, so I didn't know that the carpet smelled like a swamp when it rained. But it wasn't just that. This may sound crazy, but it just had an evil feel.
AMDG,
Thank you both for the prayers. I almost stayed home myself today, but that was not the brave thing to do. 
AMDG,
I don't think that sounds crazy. I think some places do have an aura about them. I also think there's room in Catholic theology for this.
Thank you all again for your prayers. The problem seems to have vanished in the mist.
So now I'm just sitting here with Van Morrison sticking labels on many, many brochures.
The speakers on my pc here are really better than the ones at home.
AMDG,
I wasn't here until the problem vanished - said a prayer of thanks instead.
I somehow missed the problem too. Glad it is better now.
Yeah Dave, I've been working on it for a long time.
AMDG,
So, Maclin, are your anticipatory azaleas abloom yet? We only have daffodils . Hard to believe that two days ago it was painful to go outside.
AMDG,
Well, doggone it. I'm giving up on embedded links. http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3265400730/
AMDG,
Daffodils!!!
(And I'm so sorry I missed the problem!)
Yes, we do have some azaleas blooming. The idiots. It was below freezing 48 hours or so ago, but was up near 70 (21C) today. It's virtually certain to freeze again sometime this month.
This is a terrible business going on in Australia, with the wildfires. Louise asks for prayers. As best I understand it the fires are down her way, in the southeast corner of the continent, but she's in Tasmania, 150 miles of ocean away from the mainland, and presumably conditions are different.
Praying!!
(Free CD) For anyone who might be interested, I found a copy of the Geoff Smith CD "15 Wild Decembers" at a used CD store for 50 cents. The jewel case is pretty jacked up, but the disc and inserts are fine. This is a sort of minimalist pop/classical thing, piano driven with contralto female vocals. Anyone who wants it I'll be happy to mail it out to you free of charge. Just email me at rgrano2@juno.com
Hey Anti! CNB has some ZOMBIES for you: http://cburrell.wordpress.com/20...-year/
#comments
AMDG,
*swoons*
*revives immediately*
Yaaaay!!!
*does the happy zombie bunny-hop*
I'm glad you like the book, or at least the idea of it, anti. It looks pretty cool.
I need some help. Yesterday I finished reading The Road. I seem to remember a while back a discussion here about the book, and someone (RobG?) posted a link to an essay on it. I think. Anyway, if anybody remembers this, and knows where the link went to, could you remind me? Thanks.
A very good book, by the way! Horrible, but good.
Never mind, I found it. It was buried in the other Undead Thread (i.e. the dead one).
For the record, here is the link: http://www.civitate.org/2009/01/...ormac-mccarthy/
A very good book, by the way! Horrible, but good.
Indeed.
AMDG,
And that's a good article, but someone, Francesca I think, linked to another one earlier that I think is better.
AMDG,
One neat thing about the Undeads is that you can search them from the Edit function. Not, I think if you click a comment on the sidebar--I think you have to click on the thread itself.
AMDG,
By "Edit function" do you mean the browser's Find command on the Edit menu? If so, you can do that within ordinary comments via the equivalent keystroke -- ctrl-f or F3 -- even though the menu isn't there.
(NB, if you care: the reason the menu doesn't show for regular comments is that they're displayed by a Java script (HaloScan-supplied) which fetches them and displays them in a window tailored in various ways for the purpose. Whereas the undeads are just a direct link.)
Thank you. I'm so happy. You have no idea.
AMDG,
A big, fat mosquito just landed on my arm and bit me. It hurt, too. This isn't right. You ought to have some hiatus from mosquitoes in February.
AMDG,
(Forty Pulpits) Over the past four years I have interviewed hundreds of preachers, many of whom come from Alabama, and I've made the discovery that people from Alabama pronounce the word "pulpit" in a very distinct manner that I am not even capable of imitating, much less trying spell. I'm wondering, Maclin, if you know what I'm talking about, or if you pronounce it that way yourself.
But maybe you can't even hear it. People in St. Louis pronouce "or" as "ahr" so, for instance, they say Lahrd or Lard instead of Lord. I once heard a Charismatic priest from St. Louis give a talk in which he said, "Praise the Lard!" so many times that by the time he got through, I was ready to go home and fry myself in a pan.
I used to have a lot of friends in St. L. and visted them fairly frequently. Once, I said to them, "Do y'all know that you pronounce "or" like "ar"--you say Lard instead of Lord. "I don't understand," my friend said. "Did you say we say Lard instead of Lard?"
For some reason, every time I would visit, there would be a reading at Mass that had something to do with forty--forty years in the wilderness--forty years I endured that generation--fasting for forty days and forty nights, etc.--and I would sit stiffling my giggles while they were saying that the Israelites wandered in the desert for fahrty years. Then after several years (not forty, though), I finally attended a weekday Mass with no numbers. I couldn't believe it. The string was broken! Then after Mass they started talking. "Whatcha doing this afternoon." "I'm taking the youth group to the ballgame." "Great, how many are going?" "Oh, about . . ."
I promise, this is all true.
AMDG,
Hey, hey hey! Second most miserable.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/
06...ble_cities.html
My favorite it the violent crimes rate that is more than twice that of NYC.
AMDG,
That's a really badly presented story. I never did see a list of the whole 10, and I didn't want to sit through their slide show.
Is New Orleans on the list? I would think it would be as bad as Memphis.
I'm not sure what you mean about pulpit, although I'm conscious of it being a problem word: I don't know whether to say "pull-pit" or "puhl-pit." I think some southerners try for the latter and slide past the "l", so you get "puh-pit."
"ahr" for "or" is one of the midwesternisms that can get on my nerves. I thought of another a couple of hours ago when I first read your comment, but virtuously did not take the time to reply then. So I guess God doesn't want me to criticize midwesterners. Southerners are sort of badly positioned for that, anyway.
Oh wait, here's one. Perhaps it was only a quirk of one particular person I used to know, but he was a mid-westerner, I think: "strobberies," rhymes with "robberies," for "strawberries."
I guess God changed his mind.
The accent is on the first syllable, but the pit turns into two or maybe three syllables.
AMDG,
I think my fascination with the pronunciation, however, is that fact that although it's clearly a Southern thing, I can't do it. And then, of course, I hear that word constantly.
AMDG,
"Pull-piy-it"?
Close. I'd have to hear it. But that's probably about as close as you can get. You should try to engage some people in conversations about pulpits. Maybe it's a Protestant thing.
AMDG,
This is hilarious:
http://
liturgicalspreadsheet.tri...spreadsheet.pdf
found on Robert's site - thx RG
I don't have time to read it all right now but I was laughing out loud by the fourth or fifth line.
(Triskaidekaphilia) I always celebrate Friday the 13th.
AMDG,
What form does the celebration take?
Usually I just make an announcement. Becca and I have a Triskaidekaphiliac Association, but I'm the only present member. We may go out to dinner though. You think I could get somebody to give me 13 shrimp instead of 12 in honor of the day? That's probably more shrimp than I could eat, but Bill loves shrimp.
I think I mentioned here before that one of the days that the Blessed Mother appeared in Fatima was a Friday the 13th--July, I think. If it's good enough for her, it's good enough for me.
And speaking of going out for dinner, a nice little restaurant has opened about 10 minutes from my house. This is so amazing. I like to go out to dinner on Friday, but we both get off work at 3:00, and it's too early to eat and too long to wait around here for dinner. Then, once I'm home I don't want to get back in the car and drive for half an hour to get to a restaurant. So this is really nice. The proprietor ("I used to go to Catholic Church") has been trying to get us saved, but not offensively. I don't think he knows what he's let himself in for.
AND DAVE--that spreadsheet is really funny. Maybe to celebrate I'll print off 13 copies and send them to people in categories 2 and 3.
AMDG,
I suppose I must be at least a little superstitious, because, while I don't worry about Friday the 13th (one of my children was born on the 13th, though not a Friday, and then there's Fatima), I would still feel slightly uneasy joining your Association.
Yes, it's great to go out to eat on a Friday. Or get take-out seafood and watch a movie while you eat.
I'm going to a Mardi Gras parade in a little while, unless it starts raining a good bit more heavily. I'm sorry to say I'm a bit tired of MG parades.
"I would still feel slightly uneasy joining your Association."
I bet if I'd told you we celebrated with tiramisu, you would have jumped right in.
AMDG,
Are you tired of parades because you've been to too many this year or tired of them for the rest of your life?
AMDG,
This was the first for this year, so I guess it means I'm tired of them, period. Maybe not for the rest of my life.
Parades start when? After Epiphany, Candlemas?
Maybe you're just in a mood.
Or maybe it's like my Christmas tree aversion.
AMDG,
The truth is that Mardi Gras parades are a little sad and tawdry. You need to bring a certain celebratory frame of mind with you in order to ignore that and enjoy it anyway. It helps to have young children with you, I think. Maybe it's partly a mood on my part and partly just a result of having seen so many of them.
A Mardi Gras parade in the rain, which is what I experienced last night, is really almost grim. There's nothing sadder to me than a failed celebration.
Yeah, you probably would have enjoyed it more if you had been driving around taking pictures of it.
AMDG,
There's not really a set time for the parades to start, but it gets going in earnest about two weeks before the beginning of Lent--Mardi Gras, the day, is the marker, rather than any fixed date, and of course it floats with Easter.
There was a parade associated with the Senior Bowl, several weeks ago, that I think they tried to call a Mardi Gras parade, but that was just PR.
Possibly, but that's physically impossible due to the streets being blocked off.
Well, you didn't have to do it there. You could have just driven down the X-way.
AMDG,
X-way?
I think that this might be why kids in the neighborhood call our house The Witch's House.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3281931729/
AMDG,
That's scary.
Maclin, I have just now seen the recent comments on this thread and your relay of my prayer request for the bushfire victims. Many thanks!
The conditions are much better here in Tassie, as you supposed. For which I am very thankful.
I think the kids that lived here before we did must have painted that face on the tree. The original owners used to have an orchard and this pear tree is the last one standing. It is completely hollow inside and up until about 3 years ago still bore a lot of fruit. I think it's about had it now, though, but somehow I don't want to get rid of it.
AMDG,
When I first looked at this, on my too-small laptop screen, I thought it was a natural phenomenon, which might be scarier.
Yeah, that would be even creepier than the head (I guess that's what it called) of about 30 garlic cloves that I found underneath the tree in front of my house. I'm wondering if one of my neighbor's thinks we're vampires.
AMDG,
I just got an email from the President of the seminary that we're having a meeting at 10 about some "news from the board meeting over the weekend." This is a bit scary. He also says there are going to be changes to the health insurance, so I guess that means the seminary isn't closing anyway.
AMDG,
Are you talking about something man-made or some kind of fluke of nature?
Last night I had a nightmare about zombies. I was about to blame some of y'all, as I have probably not given zombies ten minutes' thought in my life until recently, but then I remembered the hacked traffic sign I posted.
When I first wrote the preceding, I first said "I dreamed," then changed it to "I had a nightmare," but forgot to remove "I dreamed" so that it said "I dreamed I had a nightmare." I hope I never actually do that.
Of course my 9:42 was about the garlic head. As for the board report, funny, our board met last week & we're having a similar report today. We're definitely not closing. Yet.
Oh darn. I wish it had been man-made. It was like someone had plucked the head off the stalk. But where it came from and how it got into my yard is mystery. Maybe Duke, but I'm not too sure he'd go out of his way to get a mouth full of garlic. But who knows. Maybe his name is really Il Duce. Or maybe he's just being a good dog and protecting US from vampires. We watched The Omega Man (what a horrible film) the other night and I've been thinking a lot about Matheson's book and his vampires in comparison to the Inquisitorial whackos in the movie.
AMDG,
Sometimes it's helpful to be at the bottom of the barrel. 1% pay cut starting in August. I figure if they had told me I was getting a 1% raise, I would have said, "Oh heck, that's nothing." In fact, I've said that about even a 3% raise, which is the highest percentage anyone is getting cut. So, nobody's getting layed off and all-in-all it's not too bad. They are also lowering the matching funds for our retirement funds from 5% to 2.5%, but I've been getting ready to cut that out anyway.
AMDG,
Yeah, could be way worse. No layoffs here, either, and so far no salary cut, but no raises this year.
No raises this year as well, for faculty, staff, and grad students.
At this end, our crazy lecturer's union wants to go on strike for an 8% pay rise. They are living in cloud coocooland. I just hope the union as a whole votes against!
I read on the Princeton Seminary website that their endowment has lost 1/3 of its value, and they are freezing everything in sight. For once we don't envy the Americans, with their vast endowments. We get next to no money from endowments, whereas they (you) are dependent on theirs (your colleges).
Yeah, if your national situation is anything like ours, that's crazy.
Small colleges here, like the one I work for, depend on a mix of endowment, fund-raising, and tuition. When the stock market goes bad the first two are hit hard--the first directly, the second indirectly by the fact that big donors are probably also big stockholders. And the third is hit by economic downturns generally.
"I dreamed I had a nightmare." I hope I never actually do that.
I'll happily do that for you, Sir! :-D
You know not what you offer, anti. I'm afraid something bad happens if you wake up screaming and realize you're only in another dream.
I think I saw this in a movie once.
It's like this variation on the dream where you dream you get up and get dressed and then wake up and realize that it was a dream and you have to do it all over again and then you realize that THAT was a dream and you have to get dressed for the third time that morning and then . . .
That is a nightmare.
AMDG,
I don't think I've ever had a dream where that happened, exactly. I do fairly often become aware in a dream that it's only a dream. I guess that's when I'm starting to wake up.
Twila Paris. Am I the only one who likes Twila Paris? Is that just plebian of me or something?
AMDG,
I don't know who she is.
The videos tend to schlock. I don't often listen to contemporary Christian music, but this gets to me somehow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q...h?
v=QJfSp_rceFs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A...h?v=AtDgb-6dl-
g
AMDG,
Hey Rob--I have a question for you: should I see the Tarkovsky version of Solaris? I was about to put the Soderbergh one on my Netflix q, even though I've seen it before, and then I saw that they have T's. It's dauntingly long for a movie that doesn't have a lot of action.
I'll have to wait to try those vids sometime at home, Janet. Besides the fact that I'm supposed to be working, we have streaming video throttled back here, so it takes a long time.
Tarkovsky's Solaris is very long and very slow, with lengthy bits where hardly anything happens. I came away somewhat underwhelmed (and I'm one who generally doesn't mind 'long and/or slow').
I don't mind long and/or slow if there's a good enough artist at work, but it needs to be very good. If there's not any real action, it needs to be visually fascinating or intellectually engrossing. La Dolce Vita is about the same length and I found it tiresome. I guess I'll give this a shot, though. The only thing is, I find it very hard to abandon a movie, sort of like not wanting to leave food on my plate. So I'll probably waste the whole almost-three hours if I don't like it.
Tarkovsky: I've read a lot of good things about Solaris in the past. I haven't seen it. I think Andrei Rublev is a good film. I also liked The Sacrifice years ago, but haven't seen it recently.
I'm not familiar with him at all--wouldn't even have recognized the name out of context.
I like Andrei Rublev a lot. I didn't hate Solaris, but I can't imagine watching it again any time soon.
Hmm, yeah, looks interesting, but...205 minutes (=almost 3 1/2 hrs)?!...I dunno....
Frankly, I think you'd be better off watching Andrei Rublev if you haven't seen it.
I'd say the same. Start with Andrei Rublev and go on into Tarkovsky from there.
Sigh. Ok. 3 1/2 hours...
My mom just called because she heard on the news that a pedestrian was hit in front of the seminary. She wanted to make sure it wasn't I. I'm not even in TN, but now I'm sitting here at school wondering if it's ok to pray that it's not somebody I know, which it almost certainly is because the students park across the street and it happened right before classes start.
AMDG,
Like us praying that the hurricane will hit someplace else. Maybe you should just pray for the person, that he or she is not injured too badly. Although I guess if it was on the news it isn't good.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'm guessing it was just on the traffic report, so it might be ok.
AMDG,
It's like this variation on the dream where you dream you get up and get dressed and then wake up and realize that it was a dream and you have to do it all over again and then you realize that THAT was a dream and you have to get dressed for the third time that morning and then...
*sigh* That happens to me a lot. Usually on Mondays.
That never happens to me. I think it would freak me out.
Wow, really?
It annoys me like bleeping crazy. I mean, it gets to the point where I'm all dresses and headed out the door. And then I "wake up" in bed again. And it starts all over.
Or else I come in late to where I'm supposed to be, and then I "wake up." Rewind, etc.
Oy, Anti. That does sound tiresome.
"all dresses" is funny. Like you kept putting on one dress on top of the last every time you went through this loop.
Oy, Anti. That does sound tiresome.
Oy Dave! Tiresome it is, mmmhm!
Actually I had one of those cycles a few weeks ago when I had to do a report in class. In one cycle I dreamt that I got out of bed, left the house, went to school, and wowed the prof with my amazing research and oratorical skills. Then I "woke up."
"all dresses" is funny. Like you kept putting on one dress on top of the last every time you went through this loop.
Haha! I knew there was a reason why I didn't bother to correct that little typo :-D Then again, maybe that's actually what happens :-P
I think Marian's been reading too much Calvin and Hobbes:
http://schwicky.net/calvin/image...ages/
dreams.jpg
We love Calvin & Hobbes. Thx Ryan.
I'm not sure it's possible to read too much C&H. But that is uncannily like anti's dreams.
Speaking of C&H:
http://blogs.herald.com/photos/
u...calvinhobbs.jpg
I'm not sure it's possible to read too much C&H
Yes, Calvin was my first kindred spirit wrt gravity.
But that's pretty much the dream, except it repeats at least 3 times.
AMDG,
I did know the woman who got hit, but she's ok. They looked her over at the hospital and sent her home. This intersection is awful. You have to cross a right-turn lane to an island, cross 7 lanes to another island, then another turn lane. It's really not an intersection because the N-S street goes under the E-W street. Last month, a car went over the edge of the overpass onto a car below. It just so happened that it landed on a car containing a former neighbor and his wife. Thank goodness, they were ok, too.
AMDG,
Oh, it is. I had my comic books taken away from me as a kid after I reenacted one of Calvin's antics. :-P
I think it's great how the characters are named after John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes after their personalities.
My favorite C&H's are the ones where we see Calvin and Susie grown up:
http://bp1.blogger.com/
_KWVerE0X...+and+Hobbes.gif
Alright, off to teach poetic meter!
Oh yeah, I absolutely love those. Like the one where they're playing husband and wife and Calvin just can't stand it anymore. One of these days my wife and I are going to give ourselves that gigantic hardbound collected C&H for Christmas.
Gad, Janet, that does sound like a nightmare (heh) intersection. Glad your friends were not badly injured.
(Andrei Rublev) Actually, because the film is divided into six sections of roughly equal length, it's not the type of thing you absolutely have to watch straight through. You can watch 3 + 3 or whatever. I find the section featuring the Tatar invasion to be very disturbing, but the final section, "The Bell," is one of my favorite cinematic sequences in all of moviedom.
Didn't the film make some sort of all-time great movie list put out by the Vatican?
They are having chapel upstairs. The chapel is right above my office. They are playing some kind of reggae music and someone is stomping HARD on the floor. It makes me a bit nervous because I've seen chunks of ceiling fall around here. 
AMDG,
The Bell is indeed wonderful. The sections do help. You can almost watch a section a night for a week.
Chapel + reggae?...does not compute...
Humph. What does the Vatican know about movies? I bet Smokey and the Bandit wasn't even on that list.
Yeah, easily separable sections would help.
The third element is Black History Month. You should be here for the Hip-Hop Mass--Episcopalian, thank goodness.
AMDG,
Episcopalians rapping?! As my mother would say, "Oh horruhs!"
Somehow I had the idea your seminary was somewhat more conservative than that.
"Episcopalians rapping?"
We're white guys
We're extremely white
And we walk with our rears
Extremely tight...
(anyone remember that from Sat. Night Live?)
Moving further afield, but un the Norton Anthology I'm teaching from, the editor compares Skeltonic meter (the meter of John Skelton, who uses very short lines and repetitious rhyme) to rap. I actually see his point:
http://www.luminarium.org/renlit...lit/
sparowe.htm
This is actually a better example of Skelton's 16th century hip-hopping:
http://www.luminarium.org/editio...ons/
elynour.htm
Absolutely! You need to record that.
AMDG,
"With a whym wham,
Knyt with a trym tram,
Vpon her brayne pan,
Like an Egyptian.."
Yep, that's rap.
Do you think that Elynour Rummynge waits by the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door?
AMDG,
No Janet, but:
And this comely dame,
I vnderstande, her name
Is Elynour Rummynge,
At home in her wonnynge ;
And as men say
She dwelt in Sothray,
In a certayne stede
Bysyde Lederhede.
She is a tonnysh gyb ;
The deuyll and she be syb.
Yeah, that's what gave me the idea.
Skelton even has some scatological and bawdy humor in that poem, which I won't share among this polite company.
But Janet, you should tell your Brit Survey teacher you want to read some Skelton, and no playa hatin'.
Work. I'm going to work now.
AMDG,
Haha!
Tunning, btw, refers to her occupation with brewing ale. She has some interesting recipes in the poem.
She also makes mad cheese.
Also, Skelton was a priest, who used to diss Cardinal Wolsey a lot in his raps, until the Cardinal hired Skelton, who then sold out.
No doubt speaking truth to power can get kinda old.
LOL! It's been a fun day here.
Okay. So I've been browsing the thread.
I thought to myself, "I didn't know Skeletor was a poet."
Then read some more.
"Oh!"
Then I thought, "Why does Ryan keep typing skeleton with a capital 's'?"
*Sigh* Time to really wake up. (And can I really be sure this isn't a dream, Sir? :-D)
Unfortunately, no.
Anybody who knows who Skeletor is has to be either of a certain age or the parent of somebody of a certain age.
Haha! I bet :-D
I must be the parent of somebody a certain age.
AMDG,
There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who love He-man, and those who love Thundercats. I am one of the latter.
Ah! But it doesn't necessarily follow that those who love one aren't the same as those who love the other!
No, that would be like loving the Mets and the Yankees, or loving Duke and UNC, or...loving Star Wars and Star Trek.
Well, after 150 contacts on linked in, 700 emails, 30 responses to actual postings, 25 resumes sent to companies without postings, 14 interviews for 8 jobs, 2 rejections and 2 "we can't pay that much"es, I now have 3 job offers to consider.
That's nice of course, but the trouble is, the job I like best pays the least and the job I really don't like very much pays a lot more. The next few days will be all about discussions, negotiations, and vacillations.
In any case, please say a little prayer thanking God and asking Him for wisdom.
Congratulations, Dave. May God guide you in your decision.
I had a choice sorta like that once. I took the low-paying one. But I'm not going to tell you it was the right decision--I still don't know, and never will in this life.
Dave,
That's great news. I've been out of the loop on this, but I will be praying for your job search from now on.
No, that would be like loving the Mets and the Yankees, or loving Duke and UNC, or...loving Star Wars and Star Trek.
*dies laughing*
please say a little prayer thanking God and asking Him for wisdom
*revives
Prayers sent! I'm so glad you at least have more than one option to consider. And yep, choosing is a drag. But then, so is job hunting.
I still don't know, and never will in this life.
:-(
"it doesn't necessarily follow that those who love one aren't the same as those who love the other"
I'm having a little trouble with this logic. It seems to mean that one person can be two kinds of people. Which is true in some contexts but I'm not sure about this one.
Mac, Thanks and I know what you mean about not knowing. Seems too many are too blithe when they say "I'm sure it has worked out for the best."
Oh, I meant to add: I'll probably pick the middle preference/middle pay job - After all, I am a moderate
Ryan, thank you for your prayers. I've kept it kinda quiet but glad to have the support here (by golly is the whole thing ever gut-wrenching). And you've been downright chipper today when I thought you'd told us you were just going to duck in every now and then to complain about...students maybe, or grading papers, or.. shame on me but I can't remember now 
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who know binary, and those who don't
Oh, and thank you too, Anti.
I had no idea who Skelton is.
I love that one, Dave. I've been very tempted to buy a t-shirt with that on it.
I love that binary joke.
Don't feel bad--I can't remember either. Yes, I've been a bit chipper. I think it's for two reasons: 1) I think *knock on wood* I'm beginning to get healthy again, and 2) I just found an important piece of evidence for my dissertation last night, so I have a renewed sense of hope and purpose. But it has been a tough winter!
And you're very welcome regarding the prayers.
I'm having a little trouble with this logic. It seems to mean that one person can be two kinds of people. Which is true in some contexts but I'm not sure about this one.
*dies again laughing*
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who know binary, and those who don't
*revives*
What's binary?
*ducks
":-(
antiaphrodite"
That's not really bad, anti. I we always knew when we'd made the wrong decision, it would drive us crazy. We'd spend our whole life fretting about it.
Then, again, if you're looking at the right goal, and decide for the right reasons, I suspect any decision can end up being the best.
AMDG,
Prayers here, Dave. Bill once quit a higher paying job for a lower and I'm sure it was the right thing because I was about ready to have him committed previously.
A primary consideration for us has been the amount of time he could spend with the family. His job at the museum paid terribly, but he was 5 minutes from home, could run home in an emergency and we had fun hanging around the museum.
AMDG,
Thanks Janet. It is a primary consideration for us too, which points to the middle job - close to home, close enough even to bike sometimes, close to each school, flex time, and most importantly, they shoo all the contractors out the door at 4:30 - I'm sure Pam will be doing double takes for a few months with me at home at 4:45.
Anti, it doesn't bother me much not to know. Also, while I like my decisions to work out well of course, the criteria for judging if it was a good decision is based more on the information that was available at the time. Nobody can see the future and we're always forced to decide with incomplete information. Finally, occasional poor decisions are disappointing of course but they don't bother me too much either, "Well, that was stupid. I'll try not to do *that* again."
We've made poor decisions about buying homes, twice, and paid dearly in money and psyche. Job decisions are bigger in some ways - similar financial impact but somewhat harder to correct. Gladly, the job decisions so far have been very good. Those are just as much about knowing when it's time to change and summoning the hutzpah as choosing the the next one.
[didn't mean to prattle on so]
I'm coming to this conversation late, but I'll send up some thanksgiving and discernment prayers for you, Dave. I know very well how gut-wrenching this kind of thing can be until it's finally settled and you're going forward.
Ryan, have you ever heard the Flanders and Swann sketch (well, it's really a monologue by Michael Flanders, with Donald Swann playing improvisations on "Greensleeves," which is the real subject of the monologue) in which John Skelton and Thomas Kydd try to write a musical together?
The Master of the King's Revels comes to Kydd and says, "Could you write us another one of your little plays? We did so like that Spanish Tragedy. And it's going to be rather a special occasion: they're nationalising the monasteries . . . "
So Skelton and Kydd end up trying to write Ralph Roisterdoister as a musical -- anything to keep it from being done straight -- but they need a song to close the first act.
Luckily Henry VIII turns up and hands them off this song he's just scribbled down, and when they realize who he is ("We are Henry VIII, we are"), they also realize that "Greensleeves" is exactly what they were looking for.
It's very funny, and what's even funnier is to hear an audience, ca. 1963, belly-laughing at references to things like Gammer Gurton's Needle and "Noah's Flodde -- On Ice."
I was thinking the other day, Sally, about the decline of the middlebrow audience that would have gotten at least some of those jokes.
About decisions: I always figure that when neither option is sinful you just make your best guess and, if it doesn't work out so well, shrug it off and don't kick yourself too hard. In part this is just logical, because you can never know whether the other option(s) would have worked out, either. Where you did something that was actually wrong, though--morally--that you can regret indefinitely.
We've had the same sort of "luck" with buying houses, Dave. Nothing totally disastrous, but usually we managed to lose money, and we never had quite enough money to buy what or where we really wanted, so my poor wife has spent her whole married life trying to make the best of houses that were in some significant ways unsatisfactory.
That house going up next door that I've mentioned before is the latest: we had a shot at buying that lot 15 years or so ago, but could never quite manage it, so now we've got this damn thing twenty feet away and towering over us.
That's not really bad, anti.
I know, it just sounded sad.
I we always knew when we'd made the wrong decision, it would drive us crazy. We'd spend our whole life fretting about it.
Ah, but I make fretting into an art form! :-P It doesn't even matter whether I actually know I made a bad decision or not. I don't drive myself crazy, but then I don't have to :-P
Anti, it doesn't bother me much not to know.
That's good
Where you did something that was actually wrong, though--morally--that you can regret indefinitely
I'm not even sure that we are allowed that luxury--not that we don't do it, but we ought not.
AMDG,
Hi Sally,
When I need a break from my Renaissance dissertation, I will check that out! :-D
"Noah's flode on ice"--lol!
My curiosity is piqued by mention of a "Renaissance dissertation".
(Also by the fact that I can't find the post that these comments relate to, but the more I see of the comments the less I want to go there.)
And while proudly laying claim to being middlebrow enough almost to have choked at "they're nationalising the monasteries", I've just visited the home page and was struck by the fact that I'm now following two blogs with epigraphs from Wittgenstein (the other is http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com/). Next thing you know I'll be an intellectual myself.
Hi Paul,
It's actually in this thread--look for Skelton.
And yes, I'm a PhD Candidate in English Literature, with a focus on Late Medieval/Early Renaissance. It appears from your blog like you're in History?
Anyway, if you want the gory details about said dissertation, you can email me at ryan_lothar@hotmail.com.
And now back to reading through Michael Drayton.
Hello Paul,
I tried to answer you on FB, but I just can't make it work at home. I wish you could go with us, but it's a bit too far to come pick you up this time.
AMDG,
And Paul, aren't you up very, very late?
This thread, btw, is a sort of catch-all thread. You will find it in the sidebar under Janet's Undead Thread 2.0.
AMDG,
Having been in bed with the flu all morning and most of the afternoon, I now feel fit and rested in the middle of the night. I'm sure it will have worn off by the time the children have to be given breakfast.
The very few times that I ever feel fit and rested are in the middle of the night. Of course, nowadays I get up at 4 a.m.
Do you have a reliable email address where I can write you, since I only have time to write on weekends when I can't use FB? You could email me and tell me what it is.
AMDG,
I'll email you both. (And Janet, is my computer playing up, or is this thread your homepage?)
You're computer is fine. This, humble and strange as it is, is my homepage.
AMDG,
This may be
the weirdest thing I have ever seen.
I count myself singularly blest in that I am married to, possibly, the only man alive who would stand in the middle of a truck stop in Alabama and take this picture for me.
AMDG,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3302685534/
Why can't I do this? I guess a person just can't be good at everything. Hopefully this will work.
Hah! Well it does look pretty and tasty :-D Interesting!
Yes, and it cleans your teeth.
And it's all natural, though not green.
But if it really is all natural pork hide, that was one strange looking pig.
All-natural goes psychedelic.
Oh, there are green ones, too, if that's what you would like. And there are some that look like braided strips of extruded candied fruit. There were at least 6 different varieties, but I didn't want to try Bill's self-sacrificing nature too much.
AMDG,
If I could only get a picture of that pig!
Morning visitors.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3303104549/
This: Oh, there are green ones, too
and this: If I could only get a picture of that pig!
made me with you did get a picture of that pig.
Wow!
Was that Wow for the pig or the deer. I don't undertand the post above the last.
Wow for the deer. For the other, I meant that the first time I read your post I thought you were talking about green pigs. Don't worry, I'm not sure I understand myself right now, either.
Anti is staying up too late again...
Wow - never seen candy-striped pork scratchings before!
Why my next car will be a Toyota.
http://www.facebook.com/album.ph...3619572&
l=4d752
I thought my '93 Civic was going to make it to 300, but it developed problems around 270 that put me in the "should I put more money into this repair than the car is worth?" bind, and left it at the dealer where it had been towed, having traded it for a not-all-that-used 2001 model, which Clare is now driving. I replaced it with an old ('92) Volvo which now has around 185, and I plan to drive it until it starts falling apart, but I fear that process has already begun. The guy at the shop says the engine is almost indestructible if you don't do anything really stupid to it, but the car has a lot of minor problems.
Anyway, congratulations.
When we were dating, Bill had a Volvo. He loved that car. One day, we had had a rather heated discussion about something that I'm sure was very stupid, although I have no idea what. However, we had to make up so he could come and get me and I could watch the odometer turn to 100,000 miles. So we have a long history of this sort of thing. Today we didn't have a fight first, so I guess we've learned something in the past 38 years.
AMDG,
I've been trying very hard to be bad in preparation for being very good starting tomorrow, but it has been a dull and dispiriting attempt at badness.
It's bad when you're no good at being bad.
But on the other hand it's not good when you are. Wish I had that problem (Janet's).
I've always taken pleasure in the odometer rolling over some large number. Or milestones like 77,777. I'll never forget 222,222.
Well, actually I had until just now, but I did note it. I guess I'm not as into it as Bill, as I've never invited anybody who wasn't already in the car with me to share the moment.
I'm resisting the urge to go off on Christian medieval numerology haha.
I guess I'm not as into it as Bill I think he was more into me.
AMDG,
It's bad when you're no good at being bad. It didn't have anything to do with my ability or lack thereof. I had to with having nobody around to talk to.
AMDG,
"He was more into me." Of course.
A couple of days ago, we had an absolutely gorgeous sunset. I was driving down the expressway at the time (rush hour), but I thought that maybe I could just stick the camera out the window and get a picture. It doesn't begin to capture the beauty of the sunset, and I post it here, not to show you what the sunset looked like, but as evidence that somebody here has been a VERY BAD INFLUENCE.
Here it is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...in/photostream/
AMDG,
Janet
nyeh...it's probably not nearly as dangerous as talking on the phone while driving. Of course maybe you don't do that either. And it wasn't even raining.
Great picture, anyway.
Rough winds have been shaking the darling buds of February around here--not to mention snow.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3317819858/
I can't tell how dark this will be on a regular monitor. It's almost black on mine, but I think it should look just about right on anybody else's.
AMDG
Today, I MUST do my taxes so that I can fill out Becca's FAFSA and the Financial Aid form for TAC. I don't know why, but this process makes me very queasy and shakey. This makes no sense. I'm not worried about the money--not much use worrying about what you don't have--and none of the forms are particularly difficult to figure out. Aside from gathering all the information, it's a pretty simple process. But still, I'm overshadowed by this conviction that I'm going to do something wrong and she won't get Financial Aid and won't be able to finish college and it will be a terrible blight on her whole life and she will hate me forever. But, aside from that, what's to worry about. I know this is irrational, but if you could say a prayer for me today, I would appreciate it enormously.
The best aspect of all this is that after today, I will NEVER have to do this again.
AMDG,
Filling out FAFSA forms for me and my two brothers always made my dad incredibly cranky, haha! So maybe there's something to the anxiety.
I don't worry about stuff like that, because I've achieved such a level of detachment from the world. That, plus the fact that my wife does it all.
Sometimes, however, I do worry that she's laying plans for my being hauled away to tax cheaters' prison if I outlive her.
By the way: does anybody remember Francesca saying anything about being away for a while? I don't think she's said anything for a couple of weeks. I would suppose she had given up this blog for Lent, which I'm pretty sure she's done in the past, but her absence predates last Wednesday. I'm starting (again) to read her book, Christ the Form of Beauty, and finding it quite interesting. Not easy reading at all, though.
I was wondering the same thing.
"I don't worry about stuff like that, because I've achieved such a level of detachment from the world. That, plus the fact that my wife does it all."
I can't begin to tell you how immensely uncharitable this response makes me feel. I just hope that you are extremely nice to her when she is doing it and that you will look down from you spiritual loftiness and same a prayer for me. I'm not kidding. This is excrutiating.
AMDG,
I have not yet achieved any particular spiritual loftiness, but I will offer my prayers, as always.
It was supposed to make you laugh. Of course I'm vastly appreciative of her. I did indeed say a prayer for you, and will say another.
I know. Thank you. It is part of the insanity of this particular day that I go a place where I cannot laugh. However, I have been knocked out of that place by this FAFSA question: At anytime since you turned age 13, were both your parents deceased?
Hmmm. Yes I think they were once, but not anymore.
AMDG,
Well, that's a mercy. I find it hard to deal with anything of that sort without getting into a rage.
By the way, I don't think my wife would allow things to be any other way, as far as her doing this stuff is concerned. Some time before we were married she discovered that I had not balanced my checkbook for months. She was horror-stricken and assumed control of the finances at once. I know she gets sick of it but I suspect--no, I'm sure--she would rather put up with that than the worry that would ensue if I were doing it.
LOL. Well, she and I are on exactly the same page. The first thing I did when I started dating Bill was balance his checking account. I think that was probably the day he decided to marry me. When we were young, I used to be disappointed because he didn't seem to value the things about me that I thought were important, but he never has failed to tell me, "Thank you for handling the finances." And he tells everybody else, too, which is nice.
I develop facial tics at the very thought of his messing with budget. He is chock full of delightful attractions, but he just can't subtract. I can't tell you how relieved I was when I figured out that one of my daughters was a mathematical adept. Now I know that someone can make sure the bills get paid if I die first.
AMDG,
I'm actually not bad at arithmetic. Even though Karen is *way* better than me at serious math, I think I'm as good, possibly better, at doing fairly simple arithmetic in my head. My defect is not in inability or carelessness with the calculations, but the mental discipline necessary to do them in the first place and especially to keep doing them regularly and consistently. In that respect I'm a complete disaster.
This is really part of my problem at the moment. I have always been very disciplined about money matters and kept track of things to the last penny and planned ahead, etc., which of course you have to do when you're raising four children on one not-so-great income. But since I've started working, I just can't keep up with it like I used to and so doing something like this FAFSA (finished, thank goodness!) where you have to get 30 different documents together, becomes a nightmare. Actually, it's never nearly as bad as I think it will be, but I've built it up in my mind because things around here are so far from where I think they should be.
Anyway, I've been wondering about Francesca, also. Maybe she's working on something? Have you tried emailing her.
I went and got Louise yesterday, because I've been wondering about her also.
AMDG,
And thank you, anti.
AMDG,
Also, it didn't help that we couldn't go to Mass this morning because the streets were icy. But they're better now, so we can go this evening.
AMDG,
Francesca is Francesca Murphy? Who wrote an essay on "What is a Catholic historian" (or words to that effect - obviously a question that concerns me) in a volume about Christopher Dawson? Gosh. The people one meets in the anonymity of the internet.
I've been thinking myself - I gave up blogging for Lent, but given the relative time involved in each, it might have been more fruitful to give up *reading* blogs than to give up *writing* them.
See, I would have thought that giving up blogging involved both. I'm not faulting you or anything, that's just what I would have thought.
AMDG,
I don't know why, but this process makes me very queasy and shakey.
Paperwork is from Satan.
I don't worry about stuff like that, because I've achieved such a level of detachment from the world. That, plus the fact that my wife does it all.
Nick and I once made the mistake of filling out gov't forms together (for family allownce, or something) and nearly killed each other! Maclin, you are not only very advanced in detachment from this world, you are also prudent!
I stand in awe of you...
I went and got Louise yesterday, because I've been wondering about her also.
I'm glad I was fetched!
I (still) find it really weird to think that until a couple of hours ago, I was fast asleep for some 8 hours and you were all here having a party without me!
Even though I understand the theory perfectly, I still find time differences weird.
And if you cross the date line, you lose a day completely. Of necessity, of course, but isn't that just the freakiest thing?
Some people are less wise and far-sighted than others, Janet.
Janet, all week I was doing taxes, the FAFSA, another form like it for our Catholic high school, an application for security clearance, and helping my folks with their medicare part D. I only just now checked in to see your earlier distress. Now that we're both done, my prayer will be one of thansgiving for us both.
Mac, your marital finance arrangement and dispositions are just like mine.
Must not be just the same, Dave, if you were doing the taxes?
Good to see you again, Louise.
No, I haven't mailed Francesca--I wanted to ask first, in case I'd forgotten something she'd said about being away for a while. But I think I will.
I've thought about giving up reading other blogs for Lent, but that seems ungracious if I'm to keep writing mine. And it's occurred to me to give up mine, but six weeks of silence is almost long enough for a blog to be considered dead. I'd be worried that nobody would read it when it resumed.
Oh, surely not.
Must not be just the same, Dave, if you were doing the taxes?
And the FAFSA.
But, I sympathize with you Dave. And since I probably start doing that stuff long before you did, I'll try not to feel guilty when you have to do it next year.
AMDG,
Tonight at Mass, I ran into someone whom I had not seen in many years--a former spiritual director--a priest who has lost his faculties--a person who has gone way down the wrong road. I was stunned when he walked up to me in the back of church. I don't think he'd been to Mass, but he had heard that there was a Charismatic prayer meeting and he wanted to be prayed for. He seemed very disoriented. I don't think there was a prayer meeting, and I'm not sure where he went.
This has really thrown me for a loop because I have prayed for him (not nearly enough) for a long, long time. He was the last priest that you would have thought would go off the deep end like he did. Well, maybe I would recognize the signs now. Anyway, please pray for Fr. Bob. It's so heartbreaking, but maybe he is finally where he needs to be.
AMDG,
OIC. Yeah, I do the taxes etc, but my wife does the checkbook and the bills. I have greater tolerance for figuring out byzantine instructions (where's DN?), and she has greater tolerance for the tedious checkbook stuff. She also is *far* more disciplined. I only have to gather that strength once a year.
Janet,
I'll definitely be praying for Fr. Bob tonight before I go to sleep.
Also, re: Franscesca--judging from what I've been going through I wouldn't be surprised if she's just very busy with the semester--didn't she have to finish a project ASAP? Still, I have also been disconcerted by her absence.
I pray that Fr. Bob will find his way/be led back to the right path.
Mac said: "My defect is not in inability or carelessness with the calculations, but the mental discipline necessary to do them in the first place and especially to keep doing them regularly and consistently. In that respect I'm a complete disaster."
Me, too. We were both disastrous at this kind of thing when we first got married -- I can remember doing bills together (our anniversary is next week, and part of the reason we're celebrating this many years together, I'm sure, is that we gave up trying to do bills together a long time ago), and my husband saying to me in complete seriousness, "Well, I know that's how much money we have ON PAPER . . . " But he's been the one willing to sit down with it all and work out budgets and talk to insurance companies and the whole shebang, which makes me a heck of a lot happier about grocery shopping and cooking dinner and housecleaning than I might have been otherwise.
Re blog conversations: I've given up a bunch of things seriously -- coffee, alcohol, desserty food -- and taken on some spiritual disciplines. Trying to scale back blog conversation because I get so sucked in, and I don't get real writing done, but basically I feel like you, Mac. I gave up blogging completely last year, and I really don't feel like doing that particular death-resurrection process again. So I'm doing some Sunday visiting, at any rate.
Just don't get me started on VAT.
I was thinking Janet that anybody can go off the rails - and the holier a person is the harder the devil will try to derail them (which, shamefully, sometimes makes me feel glad I'm not too holy, but of course it doesn't work like that either).
And while we're asking for prayers, my own carefully nurtured almsgiving plans for Lent have been thrown off by my little sister's farm hitting a financial crisis. Please pray for her.
Will do, Paul.
My remarks about blogging before were really just a bit of thinking aloud on the keyboard. It occurs to me now, Paul, Sally, & Maclin, that the reason I think that way is that unlike y'all, I don't have a blog--so giving up not blogging in that respect would not be much of a sacrifice for me. Maybe I should get one.
And zipping off in a totally different direction, Paul has a link to a blog on his homepage that belongs to some people named Mac and Karen. When I first saw that on the blog, it confused me for a minute.
AMDG,
Everytime I open this thread and see cnb plaintive little, "Will I get in trouble for doing this?" I laugh--or at least smile.
AMDG,
And if I did have a blog to give up, well, it wouldn't be much of sacrifice to give it up since with Paul's arrival ALL of my online friends are here.
I meant when he first arrived, to say that he is my longest-running online friend--about ten years, maybe? When we were discussing barbeque, I talked about taking a friend from Belgium for barbeque and his response which was, "It's been a very long time since someone's cut up my meat for me." Well, this is he. I should have taken him to a better bbq restaurant, though. This one was only convenient.
AMDG,
I am really glad to hear that you've given up desserty food, Sally. I've been bracing myself to resist. Sally can make a really delicious dessert from air and chlorophyll.
AMDG,
I will pray for your sister, Paul.
The more it snows, tiddley-pom
The more it goes, tiddley-pom
The more it goes, tiddley-pom
On snowing.
And nobody know, tiddley-pom
How cold my toes, tiddley-pom
How cold my toes, tiddley-pom
Are growing.
WtP
With all the poetry talk going on around here, I thought that I would share my very favorite poem. Actually, it has quit snowing, but I'm amazed how much more snow there is left here in Memphis than there is at home. We are almost snowless and there are still a few inches here, but not on the street, thank goodness.
My toes, are growing cold. It is 57 degrees in my office and the coffee is not ready. I suppose I should offer this up.
AMDG,
That is a great poem. And I must say I covet your weather a bit. I was thinking on the way to work about doing a post to this effect, but I'll just say it here: I'm very displeased with the blue skies we've had for a couple of days now.
We need rain. It hasn't really rained for weeks. It's supposed to rain a lot here in late winter and early spring, and for four or five years now we've been somewhat to very below normal. All last week the weather reports harped on the severe storms and heavy rains headed our way. First they were supposed to arrive late Wednesday. Nothing. Thursday. Nothing. Friday. Nothing. Finally on Saturday morning we got TWO MEASLY TENTHS OF AN INCH. A few hours later we got about that much more. So all told it rained for maybe twenty minutes, producing four tenths of an inch (about a centimeter).
Then the cold front arrived and we had constant 25-35 mph (40-55kmh) winds for 36 hours or so, which no doubt dried things out again. I'm not a happy camper. Good thing I won't be live here forever.
The only good part of the weather was that it was very clear last night, though miserably cold, and I got to see the crescent moon as it was about to set.
Yes, we were looking at the crescent moon in the clear, miserable cold, too. We had just gotten back from Mass. There was a youth choir BUT they sang the antiphons using Orthodox hymn tones. They did a great job. It was beautiful. We were supposed to sing, but we just wanted to listen.
AMDG,
Speaking of Lent, and cars (another thread): I've inadvertently made one of my Lenten observances more difficult. The cassette player/radio in my car didn't work when I bought it (over a year and a half ago now). So I've just been using my iPod in the car, which is sort of a pain (cords always getting snagged on something, etc.) and probably against the law (although not actually dangerous with ear buds, since one can hear just fine around them).
So I recently decided to buy a cd etc. receiver. What with trying to figure out which one I needed/wanted, and the usual unanticipated problems with the installation, I didn't get it working till yesterday.
One of my Lenten observances is to give up listening to music (or anything else) in the car. Since I have a 45-minute (each way) drive to work, that's significant to me. It was easy to stick to my resolution by just leaving the iPod at home. But now I can cheat at any time just by pressing a button.
I've gotten to really like the quiet in the car. Of course, I know we are different in this way. But, not only is it really good for praying--since it's Lent--but it's also very useful for writing papers in my head and thinking up all the scathingly brilliant things that I write on this blog.
AMDG,
I know, I've experienced that effect, too (I mean, not the brilliance, but ideas etc.). If I didn't have such a huge appetite for music...
The Morning After
http://www.facebook.com/photo.ph...7&
id=1413619572
I know it's blurry but I had to risk my life on a busy street to get it at all.
AMDG,
Oh man--that's in the class with Sally's.
By the way, I did see your daffodil pic the other day. It was quite viewable. Nice.
I wish I could have gotten close enough for the details to show up. For instance, he looks like he's incarcerated behind a chain-link fence.
AMDG,
The fence came through--it definitely has that effect.
Thanks Ryan!
The first time I went on the CatholicSource forum on delphi (where I virtually met Janet) would have been when my wife was just pregnant with a girl whose 9th birthday was two weeks ago. So that would be not quite ten years ago. Wow. And to think we've only met the once in all that time.
"it's probably not nearly as dangerous as talking on the phone while driving."
That was the cause of the only crash I've ever been in (I was stopped at lights and somebody on their phone drove into the back of me - and then offered me 50 euros to forget it ever happened).
But once, cycling, I suddenly heard a voice beside me say "Ok darling, ciao!" and glanced to the side in time to see the driver of a convertible hang up her phone and start to turn her steering wheel - if I hadn't heard her talking I wouldn't have braked in time, so perhaps on that occasion talking on the phone while driving saved a life?
All things considering, I think it's amazing that we have met once.
AMDG,
True. Still, I do hope we meet again.
On the other hand, Paul, if she hadn't been talking on the phone she might have seen you and not turned.
I just checked my "delphi profile", and it's older than I remembered: 16 February 1999; so it must be a full 10 years. Gosh. Where does the time go?
That had occurred to me, Mac, but somehow I didn't get the impression she would have been on the look-out for cyclists even without the distraction of a mobile phone.
You completely misunderstood, Paul. When she said, "Ok darling, ciao," she was talking to you. It was her intent to run you over, but you foiled her plan.
AMDG,
For some reason "run [you/me/him/her] over" sounds funny to me, as opposed to what is to me the usual way of saying it, "run over [you/me/him/her]".
I don't know why it should be in the least funny, as the first time I can remember hearing it--the time that sticks in my mind, anyway--is when the creepy programmer (no, that is not redundant) in Jurassic Park promises one of the nasty little spitting dinosaurs to "run you over" when he comes back from executing his evil plan. Of course that's not what happens.
In Tennessee, we run people over all the time. I wouldn't have noticed the difference either way.
AMDG,
I'm sure the dinosaur thought it was funny.
I'm sure it did. The problem is that humour whets the appetite of those little spitting things.
I don't think you should have fritters for lunch today.
AMDG
I wonder why my 11:16 comment appears before my 10:42 comment, to which it's a reply.
Nope, no fritters today, just a nice suburban sandwich.
I know that's been going on quite a bit. One of Ryan's comments moved all over the thread.
AMDG,
I just got an email saying I can make money by taking online surveys. Cool! This must be my providential fallback plan for the recession/depression.
I get them too - "Make money online. We want to hear you opinion."
Something about the grammar rather puts me on my guard.
The scenario you outline is not one that I'd envisaged, Janet.
Like you said, Paul, "Some people are less wise and far-sighted than others."
Y'all's spam is a lot more innocent than mine.
AMDG,
"One of Ryan's comments moved all over the thread."
Hmm...must be an apparition.
"apparition"..."spam"...a poetic juxtaposition.
I have the title: "Apparition of Spam Upon a Winter's Day." Who wants to write the poem?
So wait, they made several stops to try and find the snake? Why not stop and not go back in the car? :-O
LOL!
And sorry, I meant to put that other comment in the new thread.
"apparition"..."spam"...a poetic juxtaposition.
I'd like to write a limerick, but I really can't be stuffed.
Morning After the Morning After
http://www.facebook.com/photo.ph...f&
id=1413619572
I'm not even sure what that is, or was. But if it depicts a hangover it's a pretty dire warning.
It's another snowman.
AMDG,
But you knew that didn't you?
AMDG,
Yes, I thought it must be, or have been, but as a rule snowmen are at least sorta whitish. It looks more like a mudman, or perhaps a mud-and-leaf man. I'm at a loss to understand how it got that way. Maybe it was made after nearly all the snow was melted?
It is funny, by the way, but also slightly unnerving. Looks a bit like Oscar the Grouch, not hung over but still lit. Singing at the Drones, maybe.
Bill says that yesterday it was covered with grass, so it was probably even more Oscarish then. I wish I'd seen it, but it was dark when I left the house and when I got home. In our area, it was a very soppy snow, so I'm sure the ground was very wet.
AMDG,
Completely off-topic (whatever exactly the topic is on this thread), but I just got round to clicking on Mac's profile and saw Kristin Lavransdatter listed as a favourite book. Hurrah!
Sorry. Just go back to discussing snowmen. I'm going to bed before midnight for once.
I suppose I think of Kristin as often as I do of any work of literature. I haven't read Master of Hestviken, though, which I'm looking forward to.
By the way, this thread is pretty much open for anything within reason and propriety.
reason, uh-oh
I just got round to clicking on Mac's profile and saw Kristin Lavransdatter listed as a favourite book.
Oh cool! I know I've read Maclin's profile before, but it was probably before I'd ever read KL. Great book! Amazing, brilliant etc!
I read it late last year. Will revisit it when I get my copy back. By "coincidence" two other parishioners were reading it at the same time (out of a few hundred who are at Mass on the weekends). Their sister and aunt (whose name is Karen) says that it's her favourite book.
I really was amazed by it.
So, Janet, you think we need to clamp down on some of this unreasonable stuff?
It's a beautiful evening, very calm and clear. Cool but not cold. The water is almost glassy-smooth, and the moon and stars are very bright, hanging over it. Just fyi.
Louise, some people say The Master of Hestviken is even better.
Wow!
I think that as long as we stand firm on propriety, we're ok.
BTW, the longer I look at that mudman, the more it looks like a Shmoo--a very dirty shmoo, but a shmoo nonetheless.
AMDG,
I've been trying to acquire The Master of Hestviken for a while now, but the third volume appears to be out of print. It seems pointless to buy only three of four.
Hmm, my edition, bought used many years ago, is all in one volume. I see some used copies of Vol. 3 on Amazon, though (probably via 3rd parties). As well as the one I have:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product...sr=1-15&
seller=
CNB, I hope you can read the complete Master of Hestviken eventually. Some rate this quartet even more highly than the Kristin trilogy. Hestviken is, at least, extremely good.
At Amazon, in the reviews of The Axe, you will find my "Guide for the Perplexed" to help with the geneaologies.
Have you looked for the volume you need at abebooks.com?
I hadn't seen that edition before, Mac. Do you know who the translator is? I ask because I have two different translations of Kristin. One, by Tiina Nunnally, is excellent, but the other (by I-forget-whom) is atrocious.
The atrocious version is in an older one-volume edition, so I'm a little wary of the older one-volume edition you suggest. I guess if you liked it it must be safe.
Does it seem odd to anyone else that the third volume of a tetralogy goes out of print? Does this imply that there are people who bought the third volume but didn't buy the others? Or does it mean that the publisher printed fewer copies of volume 3 than of volumes 1, 2, and 4? But why would they do that? It is very strange.
Off the top of my head, no, I don't know who the translator is. Oh wait, let me look in a library catalog..Arthur G. Chater. Which I think is not the name of the first Kristin translator.
I must disagree about the quality of the first translation, at least as considered as an English book. On those terms I thought it was excellent--very rich and vivid. From what I read Archer's somewhat archaic style was not very faithful, and Nunnaly's is more true to the original. I haven't read it, so I don't know what I would think.
p.s. I haven't read the one-volume Master. It's only been sitting on my shelf for 20+ years.
My down-the-hall colleague is Mitzi Brunsdale, author of a book on Sigrid Undset. In a piece written a few years ago for the now defunct magazine Crisis, Mitzi commented on the two translations of the Kristin books. She regards the older translation as something better than atrocious. However, I have read the first of the three Kristin books in both translations, and find Nunnally's recent one much more readable. It is unexpurgated, while I understand that the earlier translator suppressed some material in a passage in one of the Kristin books describing a difficult childbirth. Mitzi can read the original, so if she regards the first English translation as having merit, it does, I'm sure.
Undset is a great writer. In the Kristin trilogy and the Hestviken quartet she really is a peer of the great Russians. Kristin and Hestviken, I would say, are the ones to read first, but I can also recommend The Longest Years, The Wild Orchid, The Burning Bush, and others. Her book about a journey across Russia to escape the Nazis, Return to the Future, was interesting, as I recall. I'm having trouble remembering which one of these novels I read (and I liked it): The Faithful Wife, Ida Elisabeth, Madame Dorthea... No, I am quite sure it was The Faithful Wife; but I'm sure they are all worth reading.
Undset "really is a peer of the great Russians."
I agree, and without having read The Master.
The short novel Gunnar's Daughter is very good.
My understanding is that the language of Undset's Kristin books reflects an old form of Dano-Norwegian. Modern Norwegians write Nynorsk. I hope I have all this right. You could say that Undset's Norwegian sounds approximately like the English of Donne's era sounds to us. Nunnally does not attempt to capture that quality, while the older does -- what Mitzi calls a "bardic" quality.
That's interesting, because I read something or other about the two translations that seemed to say almost the opposite: that Undset's style was very modern, and Archer put an antique finish on it.
Well, I like the antique quality--for me it helped create an illusion that I was actually reading a medieval work. Ok, maybe not that exactly, but it certainly brought the medieval world nearer.
Becca gave me Gunnar's daughter for Christmas. I haven't had time to read it, though. I found a while back that I had two, three-volume boxed sets of Kristin and one large book with all three novels. I thought this was a bit selfish, so I gave at least one away--maybe to Sally.
AMDG,
Interesting remarks about the translations of Kristin. My problem with the first translation was not so much the archaisms, but the precious feel of it. It really did not work for me. I found Nunnally's more straight-forward version more palatable. Maybe I should try that original translation again -- it has been about 8 years. Nah.
From what little I could gather when Nunnally's translation came out, I'd got the impression that Undset's "medieval style" echoes the very dry, matter-of-fact narrative of the sagas, and Archer went for a more Maloryesque style to mirror the medievalising in English, rather than trying to reproduce the spareness. (It might make a difference that at the time the best-known English translations of the sagas were William Morris's, which really are rather florid.) They both seem valid options to me, although Nunnally is a bit rude about Archer in her introduction to the Penguin edition.
I've only read Gunnar's daughter in Dutch, but it was pretty bleak. Very Scandinavian.
Here's a review of Gunnar's Daughter I had in an early issue of Caelum et Terra (I don't know what's causing the problem with the display of quotation marks):
http://www.caelumetterra.com/cet...ticle.cfm?
ID=41
It is a very bleak novel indeed, btw.
If it's bleak, I'm not going to read it until summer. My soul is cold.
AMDG,
Not only is it bleak spiritually, there's a major scene that involves a long trek through snow. Yeah, wait.
Then again, reading Beowulf has given me an interest in that era when Christianity was first blooming in a pagan world. Spring break is week after next. Maybe it will be warm then.
I don't ever have to look like Barbie, do I? Or even Ken?
AMDG,
I agree, Mac, about Gunnar's Daughter being bleak (and excellent).
The Faithful Wife was indeed the one I was thinking of, in an earlier message.
I've also read her novel Jenny, an early novel, worth reading but not a great work like the ones we have been discussing.
Is there not a scene where a character recounts a story of a vision of a Scandinavian frozen Hell? (Rather like the vision of Guthlac) Or am I getting it mixed up with another one?
Sory, Drythelm - not Guthlac (it's been too long since I read Bede!)
Whose translation of Beowulf have you been reading, Janet? (Or is it the original Old English?)
Sullivan and Murphy.
AMDG,
"I hope you can read the complete Master of Hestviken eventually. Some rate this quartet even more highly than the Kristin trilogy."
Anthony Esolen has said that 'Master...' is in some ways a better place for the newcomer to Undset to start, although he didn't seem to be implying that it was a better work.
I've found his recommendations in both literature and film to be spot on, btw. I recently read 'The Leopard' by Lampedusa at his recommendation and found it excellent. He spoke in Pittsburgh a couple nights ago and I had the good fortune to spend an hour and a half talking with him and David Mills at the latter's house after the lecture. Lots of wisdom there, and an amazingly humble and personable guy to boot.
I think you did give it to me, Janet, and I lent or gave it to Aaron, because I have a single-volume copy . . . now I want to dig it out and see which translation it is.
OK: Archer. I wasn't bothered by it when I read it, that I can recall -- I just got sucked into the story. But I can see how it wouldn't be faithful to a spare Scandinavian tone.
As a sidenote, one novel which I did find fascinating for what it could accomplish in that bleak saga-like voice was Jane Smiley's The Greenlanders. It's been years since I read it, and I don't think I even have it any more, but I remember finding it kind of a tour de force, much more than her big ol' rewriting of King Lear (A Thousand Acres).
I was in the local library a bit ago hoping to have a look at the Nunnaly translation, but they didn't have it. Guess I'll have to, like, buy it or something.
Sounds like a great evening, Rob.
I haven't read The Leopard. The film is well regarded but I'm afraid I found it rather dull.
I think I'm going to read The Master of Hestviken when I finish the two books I'm currently reading. I've put it off for years because of its length relative to the amount of time I have for reading, but who knows if that will ever change?
Mac, The Master of Hestviken will be a great reading experience for you.
Thanks, everyone, for suggestions as to where to buy The Master of Hestviken. I found an inexpensive second-hand copy of the elusive third volume on Amazon, and I ordered it. With that safely in hand, I am well on my way.
I was going to start Beowulf today, but had to do other things.
I will definitely be reading more of Undset and re-reading Kristen!
See you in about 12 hours!
"The Leopard. The film is well regarded but I'm afraid I found it rather dull."
I liked the novel much better than the film. The book has a certain elegiac, melancholy quality that was largely absent from the movie.
Has anyone read Doctor Zhivago? I'm about 80 pages in and am finding it rather tough going. The writing is fine, but I'm finding the episodic way that Pasternak plots it pretty tedious.
No, haven't read Dr. Z. I saw the movie five or six years ago, for the first time since it was a current hit, back when I was in high school or college. It was not at all my cup of tea back then, but I thought it was rather good this time.
Maybe I'll just drop the book and watch the film. It's not like there's nothing else to read! I hate giving up on a book, but I figure if I'm 80 pages in and it still hasn't grabbed me, it probably won't.
Oh, rats. That inexpensive copy of Hestviken, Volume III that I ordered is actually not available. Back to square one.
It is very weird that only that volume would be o.p. I think it should be illegal.
Well, when I run for President on the Abolish DST ticket, I could make that part of my platform.
AMDG,
You're onto something, Janet. I can sense the momentum beginning to build. I'll try to think of some more stuff to add to the platform.
(A Moon by Any Other Name) Yesterday morning, as I was driving to work, the moon was setting and the mist was rising. There was a thin cloud over the moon--just enough to give it a sort of halo which was trimmed in a pale red. I love dark moonlit mornings because there's just enough light to make everything look beautiful. And then I remembered a story that I read once about some missionary sisters in Oregon who called the moon, Our Lady's Lantern. It's the sort of lantern, I think, that she might have liked to have.
On the way home after class, the moon was at just about the same height on the opposite horizon. I guess there are some benefits to being away from home for 15 hours. It was nice, though, to think about Our Lady lighting the way for me so that I wouldn't run into a deer or drive into the swamp. Probably those sisters had to contend with deer and swamps, too, but they weren't going 55 mph.
AMDG,
I've always associated the moon with Our Lady, too. These past few days (DST) I've been up early enough to see the setting moon, but it's been too foggy and cloudy.
(the Moon) Mac, check out the song 'Shipwrecked' on that Jody Abbott cd I loaned you.
That's a cruel thing to say to somebody that gave up listenting to music for Lent.
AMDG,
Listenting, bah!
Not totally--the ironclad rule is no music during my daily commute, but I can still listen at other times. I don't really have to work to curtail that because I'm so busy with other stuff at home that I don't have much time for it.
Funny how that second "t" makes me pronounce the first one. List-en-ting.
Are you list-en-ting to port or starboard.
AMDG,
"I've been up early enough to see the setting moon, but it's been too foggy and cloudy" That's another thing I was thinking about. We're all seeing the same moon, even anti (where is she?) and Louise, but it's different because of the local weather. I was thinking it would be nice to take a picture of it, but then, sometimes I think that taking a picture makes you forget the real thing--you only remember the picture.
AMDG,
"to port or starboard"? First one and then the other, of course. I'm a little surprised that you needed to ask.
Yes, I busied myself taking pictures of things in the fog a morning or two ago, which meant I wasn't really enjoying the sight.
Well, I most always list to port. I don't know what it is, but if I walk into a wall, it's always on the left.
AMDG,
Does this shadow remind you of anything?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3350825717/
Darth Vader is the first thing that comes to mind.
Speaking of listing--this is a totally trivial thing, but perhaps it's odd enough to be interesting--but the ordinary shoe-tying knot will not stay tied on ashoe on my left foot. It will come loose within 15-30 minutes, depending on what I'm doing, no matter how hard I tighten it. The right one will stay tied all day. It happens with any pair of shoes and any kind of shoelace. The only way I can keep it tied is the old double-knot--i.e. tying the loops from the first knot in a square knot.
I have a feeling Darth Vader was not the right answer. Second thing that comes to mind is some other vaguel familiar villain or monster. Third thing is Chesterton in a cape.
I thought of Chesterton right off.
It reminds me of a picture of Pontius Pilate condemning Jesus to death.
It's really this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3351373037/
It's very disconcerting. The room is only about 10 x 10.
AMDG
That shoelace thing is waaaay out there.
Yeah, even the photo is disconcerting.
It's not that dark in there, but I have trouble praying with that thing looming over there.
But maybe from now on I'll try to think of it as GKC, or I'll just go the parish with the really nice adoration chapel.
AMDG,
Maybe you should leave your left foot to science.
AMDG,
That's a thought. But suppose it fell into the wrong, um, hands. The enemies of America might discover the secret and use it to force us every man in America to wear shoes with velcro closures (at least when he wasn't wearing flipflops, penny loafers, or cowboy boots). Imagine what it would do the American businessman to have to go around in wingtips held in place by velcro. And of course our enemies probably hold a velcro monopoly, since they're evil and it is too.
Very amazing:
http://babyfaithhope.blogspot.com/
"My little miracle turned 3 weeks old today! I was just thinking back to the day we brought Faith home from the hospital. They sent us home with a "do not resuscitate" letter, a memory box for someone who just lost a baby (pretty inappropriate if you ask me... it had condolences written everywhere... umm?), and some literature on bereavement... I thought the memory box was a horribly insensitive gesture, considering my baby was and is still alive, and the pamphlet on bereavement was totally impersonal and tacky"
AMDG,
A self-help book on bereavement? Egad.
Mother and baby look wonderful. Totally amazing!
I had another funky dream/set of dreams last night. I dreamed I was ill. People came to visit me, people I haven't seen for a long time. One of them was already dead. But I got better after a few days; I even reported to the office. I feel like I dreamt a week.
I was trying to get a picture of the raindrops on the plum blossoms, which didn't work out at all. The raindrops refused to show themselves. But, I like the way the branches outline the roof here. I wish I could say I did it on purpose.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3359611309/
AMDG,
That's a great picture, Janet.
anti, did the person who was already dead have anything interesting to say?
I got a call from a woman in my parish Saturday, "Janet, nobody that can sing is going to be at Mass tomorrow, so could you lead the music?"
Well, since you put it that way . . .
AMDG,
Is it possible you helped bring this on yourself by praying for humility? I was asking myself a similar question when my car wouldn't start this morning.
If so, it didn't produce the desired effect. It just made me laugh. Anyway, one of the people that can sing showed up, so I didn't have to lead. I don't think she meant it the way it sounded because really, nobody there can sing.
There are still some days that I CAN sing and yesterday happened to be one of them, but often now, I can't. I'm also having trouble singing harmony because I can't hear it in my head. I've always been able to do that even when I was quite young. I'm wondering if it isn't a hearing problem.
All of the physical attributes that I used to think were my best things seem to be wearing out, but I still have my sense of humour, so that's ok. When I lose that, I will have a BIG problem, but not as much of a problem as poor Bill.
I'm really sorry about your car. I hate car problems and when you live so far from work, that must be a problem. Did you get to work today?
AMDG,
Do you know that Yeats poem about the old men admiring themselves in the water? Looking at themselves and saying "All that's beautiful slips away / like the waters..." or something to that effect. It's cruel and a bit funny. I think we're going to need our sense of humor, as this aging business shows no signs of stopping. I keep half-thinking it will: "Ok, this is getting pretty close to enough now, I've learned my lessons, you can stop now and bring the real me back."
I rode with Karen to work. Or rather I drove her to work and continued on to my job, which is farther away than hers, though fortunately in the same direction. (We don't ordinarily ride together because our hours are different.) Dang car still won't start. I *really* don't want to take it to the shop. I'll give it another 24 hours to see the error of its ways.
anti, did the person who was already dead have anything interesting to say?
No. He was rather quiet for a dead man in a dream. Of course, my grandfather can't really be described as "talkative", but he and I did have our share of conversations.
"All that's beautiful slips away / like the waters..." Well, like the waters, there's always something slipping in from the other direction. That's what's pushing the old water out, you know. Do you think that poem was the inspiration for Simon & Garfunkel's Old Friends. Did we talk about this before? That's the song I keep thinking about. I was thinking the other day that it wasn't really so terribly strange to be 70. S&G are going to be 70 in 2011. Do you think they'll do a reunion album--sitting on a park bench?
I do have to remind myself that that person who looked like this and could do that is gone for good--it's not the real me--this is the real me. And that's good because I have to die and this makes it a lot easier. If I was beautiful and could run really fast (not that either of those things was ever true) it would be too hard to die.
AMDG,
I don't know...Old Friends isn't really my fave S&G song anyways, though I like it well enough.
I don't know if it would be terribly strange to be seventy, but of course I feel like it would be mighty strange if I were to reach that age.
I'm giggling at the thought of S&G doing a reunion album sitting on a park bench.
If I was beautiful
If?
It's becoming clear to me that in one sense you never feel old. Of course you're aware that your body doesn't work as well as it used to, and even if you were never much impressed with your own looks you know that you don't even look that good anymore. But it's still the same consciousness looking out at the world, exactly the same consciousness that took in what are now your earliest memories. There's something essential in there that simply hasn't changed at all, though it's experienced a lot and presumably learned some things.
There's something essential in there that simply hasn't changed at all
Yes. When I was much younger, I'd wonder now and then what it must feel to be grown up. I thought it would feel different somehow. And it does, of course, but not in the way I expected.
This discussion is interesting -- I've recently been feeling nostalgic about childhood for some reason. Not only mine, but my daughter's (she's 17 now), and childhood in general. I can't say that mine was idyllic, but there's a particular aspect of childhood that I miss. Not the 'innocence,' exactly, but something like childhood's freedom combined with the sense of wonder. I've had that feeling on and off over the years, but lately it seems more intense or 'concentrated.'
Odd though, as there is nothing new or different about the last few months that would prompt such a thing.
anti, it's almost as if we have some kind of essence that's distinct from our bodies and from time, isn't it? You know, like...what's the word?...a "soul" or something. Curious, since science tells us there is no such thing.
I'm not sure I've ever felt nostalgic about childhood. And I'm not using "I'm not sure" in the way people often do, as a softer way of saying "I don't think." I mean I'm really not sure nostalgia is the right word for what I feel. I feel tremendous nostalgia for certain times, places, etc., but I think not so much for the way I felt then. I do feel very much that way about a few years of adolescence, roughly 15-19 I guess.
Come now, science has just not detected a soul. You mean the psuedo-science philosophers say that nothing exists that cannot be detected. But that's a mouthful.
Rob, Though I have no nostalgia whatsoever for my own youth, I've been feeling nostalgic for my children's.
Our youngest is 12 and a young 12 at that who still likes little-kid things. Most recently it's been the soundtrack for "I'm Really Rosie" which our now 17 yr old performed in when he was a very skinny 8 yr old. Carole King does all the music and I love it. The lyrics are perhaps insipid, but I remember everyone in that play doing their numbers and it was just plain old sweet and innocent. I remember my boy too, just recovered from a tonsilectomy and skinner even than usual in a 'muscle shirt' that only accentuated all that... singing his little heart out. I've mentioned here before the another little girl whom we see once a year or so. When I do, I just whistle the song she did and get a warm smile in return.
What was it that Wendell Barry(?) said, something like "A world fit for small children".
You know, like...what's the word?...a "soul" or something.
Gosh! It does seem like it, doesn't it? That's so weird...I'll have to, like, meditate on that sometime.
:-D
Curious, since science tells us there is no such thing.
Yeah, but since science is going to, like, discover the secret to, you know, eternal life, we really don't have to, like, worry. I mean it's not like we're gonna die before that happens.
I was being sarcastic, Dave--making fun of the Dawkins types. I've been meaning to post something on the weird phenomenon of scienctists or science-minded people wanting to prove that they don't really exist and have no meaning. Curious phenomenon.
I used to Really Enjoy Really Rosie (even though I'm not a Carole King fan). Haven't heard it for many years now.
Sorry Mac, thick as I am, I wasn't sure who your target was.
Say, I remember you mentioning that you were going to inquire on Francesca, but I don't recall the result. Hope all is well.
Yes, anti, and even if you/we do die before science is ready, we can have ourselves frozen. Or cloned. Or have our consciousnesses loaded into computers. The possibilities are so exhilarating.
That last one especially amuses me--it combines near-total ignorance and pure conjecture and treats the result as all-but-fact, sans a few engineering details.
That's ok, I know it's not always obvious when someone is being tongue-in-cheek.
Yes, I did inquire of Francesca, and forgot to mention the result: she has given us up for Lent, which I trust was done in the true spirit of penance, i.e. giving up something very good, rather than as an effort to rein in the disordered appetite for something not so good. And she had gone away for a week or so before Lent, so she's been absent quite a while now.
I'm reading her book, Christ the Form of Beauty--not as penance, but in an effort to meditate on The Good. It's quite good although I'm not by any means understanding all of it. Guess it's just as well I didn't go into academia.
Francesca is offline for Lent.
AMDG,
Oh, sorry, I had haloscan open for a long time, so Mac had posted before I did.
OK, I really am beginning to get a complex, because no matter how many people are chattering away on the blog, as soon as I start commenting, everybody goes away.
Oh well, my very late lunch is over and I have to go back to work.
AMDG,
I've been in a meeting. And now I'm going to, like, work.
My comings and goings here are pretty unpredictable. Depends partly on what else is going on, partly on how scrupulous I'm being about commenting during work hours. Sometimes I don't check in for several hours, or overnight, and that's when you see a series of comments in quick succession from me.
Well, I'm here, Janet, but it's hours later. Maybe some people leave when you show up, but others of us are just late.
Hello Sally, I was just feeling a bit woebegone before, but I'm better now.
Glad to see you made it home safely.
AMDG,
By the way, note the times on anti's last few comments. Then add 17 hours (or is it 16 now that we're on DST?) She practically stayed up all night. So you really can't blame her for disappearing on you. I hope she didn't have to go to work/school today (tomorrow? tonight?).
By the way, I can't tell when you're actually woebegone and when you're just goofing around. Maybe we should arrange a signal of some kind.
Anyway, I hereby signal, sincerely, that I'm going to sleep in a few minutes.
By the way, to judge by the visit count on this blog, there's usually a deep lull that starts somewhere around mid-afternoon and goes on until 7 or 8 (Central time).
Also, interestingly--and this seems to be a general pattern for web sites--visits go down on the weekend. An awful lot of people are surfing the web at work.
Why yes, I did stay up a bit later than usual last night *blinks innocently* But really: I figure that since I pretty much sleepwalk during the morning, whatever time I wake up, I might as well do as much work (that requires serious thinking) when I'm awake, so I can just process away in the a.m.
And yes, I'm at school right now, and I woke up pretty early today. I'm not sure I'll be around later y'all.
we can have ourselves frozen. Or cloned. Or have our consciousnesses loaded into computers.
Sweet. Because, of course, we can always count on our consciousness to stay put in whatever box we choose to put it in. Lovely!
An awful lot of people are surfing the web at work.
It's a link to sanity :-P
It's hard to be sarcastic/deadpan in cyberspace. I like emoticons just fine, but I'd be using them a whole lot less if I was sure people would get it when I'm trying to joke/sound clever.
Redbud in the Ruins
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...s/25575672@N02/
This is why I think it's dangerous to sleep with your window open around here in the spring. It's the sort of thing that Tom More might notice.
AMDG,
No, No, No. THIS link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3364681953/
One of these days, I'm going to stop to take a picture like this and somebody's going to come out of the house and shoot me.
AMDG,
That is one monster tree.
We likes!
"somebody's going to come out of the house and shoot me"
I've had similar thoughts cross my mind. There are a couple of buildings that I pass on my way to and from work that get nighttime pictures of, and I have this vision of being seized by Homeland Security agents as a suspected terrorist.
That is a very weird tree, or rather trees. I take it the redbud is all entwined with the remains of a bigger dead tree?
"...we can always count on our consciousness to stay put in whatever box..."
That whole idea of consciousness without a body but yet physically confined gives me the serious creeps. Sounds like being decapitated but not dying. I don't understand why people like Ray Kurzweil think it sounds cool. But then I think he's probably in fact crazy. (In case you don't know who he is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray...ki/
Ray_Kurzweil )
The whole idea of consciousness without a body but yet physically confined makes me scratch my head and smirk. What the funk?
Decapitated but not dying
Exactly! What the bleeping funk??!
Fortunately these ideas are most likely pure fantasy, though I can imagine some perverse experiments coming out of them.
From Wiki: "Transhumanist philosophers argue that there not only exists a perfectionist ethical imperative for humans to strive for progress and improvement of the human condition but that it is possible and desirable for humanity to enter a transhuman phase of existence, in which humans are in control of their own evolution."
That's like, mystical, man.
A perfectionist ethical imperative! For humans to strive for!
Does it even cross their minds that they're proposing to make themselves godlike not just in regard to themselves but to everyone who lives after them? Those "humans" who are to be in control of evolution are certainly not just any old humans--they're the Ray Kurzweils et. al., because they're so smart.
"On weekends, Kurzweil also undergoes intravenous transfusions of chemical cocktails at a clinic to further reprogram his biochemistry. He routinely measures the chemical composition of his bodily fluids to ensure balance, undergoes preemptive medical tests for many diseases and disorders, and keeps detailed records about the content of all the meals he eats."
"Kurzweil joined the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, which is a company that provides human cryonics services. In the event of his death, Kurzweil's body will be chemically preserved, frozen in liquid nitrogen, and stored at a safe Alcor facility until a point in the future when medical technology can revive him safely."
Fortunately these ideas are most likely pure fantasy, though I can imagine some perverse experiments coming out of them.
Right, because we have to let Science do what Science does without impeding it with moral imperatives. We have to listen to what Science says even when it's inconvenient. Especially when it's inconvenient.
Last year, maybe longer ago than that even, I went to a talk by a Christian bio-ethicist at a local college. This was the first time I had ever heard of Transhumanist, and, of course, something inside of me was shrieking--N.I.C.E! Do you think they read That Hideous Strength and thought it was an instruction manual?
AMDG,
About the tree, I think there must be the remains of another tree in there, but I'm not about to get close enough to find out. Somebody would be posting a new picture where you could see MY arms sticking out of the vines. And then, I don't know who lives there and this is the country, so I might really get shot. Or they might have a dog. I'm sure they must have a dog.
AMDG,
stored at a safe Alcor facility until a point in the future when medical technology can revive him safely.
Safely for who?
AMDG,
they're proposing to make themselves godlike...to everyone who lives after them?
Until of course the next step of voluntary evolution occurs and they're made obsolete.
iDo you think they read That Hideous Strength and thought it was an instruction manual?
Which of course, they would have to improve on as well, considering the conclusion of that...er, manual.
Changing the subject--
I got an ad yesterday that said:
If you are between the ages of 50 and 85, the federal government provides funeral expense benefits that many Seniors living today are not aware that they qualify for.
Do you see a Catch 22 here?
AMDG,
Safely for who?
well, once he successfully becomes a posthuman, they have to be careful with him. If some sort of accident happens then the rest of the posthuman race is done for.
In short, I don't know.
Do you see a Catch 22 here?
I must confess I haven't read that book yet.
Well, I was thinking that it might be safer for the rest of us if they didn't bring him back.
Catch 22 is about pilots during the Korean War. Catch 22 is like this: If you are crazy, you can get sent home, but you can't ask to be sent home because you're crazy, because the fact that you want to go home proves that you aren't crazy.
AMDG,
I've been thinking of Lewis, The Abolition of Man, That Hideous Strength, and the Head since this discussion started.
Ah!
the fact that you want to go home proves that you aren't crazy.
Yeah, well, that's what they all think. *wicked grin*
Well, one more thing before my lunch hour is over.
Yesterday, while we were driving to work, there was this unbelievable fog. I didn't realize how thick it was until a car appeared out of the mist about 10 feet in front of us. We drive about 13 miles on country roads and then go around a curve and the town of Hernando, MS appears bfore us. Well, we went around the curve, and there was nothing there. No WalMart (hmmm, not so bad), no fast food places, no banks. It was bizarre. We couldn't see the other cars that we knew were there or the red light, until we were right at the corner. Getting on the expressway was delightful fun. And, although it was a bit better after that, it persisted all the way to Memphis.
I usually love the fog, but this was a bit scary.
AMDG,
I hope, Maclin, that you can spend the rest of the afternoon NOT thinking about them very much!
AMDG,
Re Kurzwiel's weekend routine:
Once someone told me that every hour you exercised added an hour to your life, and immediately thought, "Yeah, but it's an hour of exercise. Why do I want to add years of exercise to my life?"
OK, Now I'm REALLY going.
Bye.
AMDG,
It's my lunch time now and I'm going to direct my evolution to Chik-fil-A, where I'll be distracted from thinking about THS etc by wondering where the chickens came from, and worrying about what they were fed.
"Until of course the next step of voluntary evolution occurs and they're made obsolete."
Interesting scenario. I can see the press conference, Microsoft-style: "Transhuman 1.0 is a great product and has been very successful, but new customers are asking for features that we really can't implement using the 1.0 framework. So today I am happy to introduce to you Transhuman 2.0..."
And then in the Q&A you find out support for 1.0 is going to be dropped in 12 months.
Fog like that caused a gigantic pileup (100+ cars) on the bay bridge here some years ago. People described it the same way: as if a wall suddenly dropped down. My procedure in fog is, if at all possible, to keep the taillights of the car ahead at visible but far enough ahead that I have room to stop if he suddenly slows or stops. I regularly see people on that bridge tailgating at 80 mph in fairly thick fog.
I'm gone now.
can see the press conference, Microsoft-style:
Hah!
"So far there has been no progress in experiments with self-regenerating implements, but we expect results daily and are certain of an eventual breakthrough."
I think I'm just about ready to fall off my chair. To think I drank caffeine-rich soda earlier (technically last night). I must be rally tired.
"rally." Really!!
*sigh*
Don't even try to rally at this point--just go to sleep.
The thing about trying to stay awake with heavy caffeine is that it often doesn't really do the job, but it does keep you from sleeping well.
*giggling uncontrollably*
No, I won't try to rally--because I can't! (Why is that so funny to me?)
Oh that's totally true about caffeine. You're awake but you're not functioning properly either.
Back to that ad and the Catch-22--I'm having too much trouble parsing it in a strictly logical way to be certain that it's really a Catch-22. As written, it seems to postulate that the reader's age determines whether or not the benefits exist. Then I wonder what happens if two people read it, and one of them is 49 and the other is 51.
Possibly there's a Catch-22 involved with announcing to the living something that they can't get without dying, but perhaps they've figured out a way to convey benefits to the dead.
It was the fact that it was available to to the living that I thought was amusing.
I just got home from work and, by golly, it's spring here. It wasn't spring at work. It wasn't spring here when I left this morning, but it is now. There's a bee buzzing around the front door and birds are chirping and the grass needs to be cut. I mean it REALLY needs to be cut. I don't remember it needing to be cut this morning, but then, this is the first time since Monday afternoon that I've been home when it was light outside and we've had all the rain that didn't get to Maclin.
AMDG,
That's funny--it's certainly springish here, but the grass does not need cutting. I have noticed, though, that since the rain over the weekend there's been a definite greening everywhere.
The grass doesn't need cutting here either just yet. But the hedge needs trimming, and suddenly all the daffodils are blooming and the dandelions are starting to sprout.
Now that Paul's here, I remember that I wanted to say something about Chick-Fil-A, where Maclin went lunch. When Paul was here, he told me that when he was in Atlanta, he asked someone where he could get breakfast and the man had told him, "Chick---Fil---A," which Paul thought was as amusing as it really is, but we're just so used to it. He was also fairly amazed to be offered draft beer in a bottle.
There is actually a fast food restaurant in Memphis called Fish-Fil-A, which is really sad. I think that if you are going to have a ridiculous name for a restaurant, you ought at least to think up your own stupid name.
AMDG,
It came highly recommended. I think my exact words (spoken to the security man in the mall that the hotel was attached to) were "Sorry to trouble you, but is there anywhere nearby that you could recommend as a good place to get some breakfast?"
Grass that needs to be cut:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3366958322/
You can see that, unfortunately, it is full of leaves that need to be raked.
Some violets, too, which is nice.
AMDG,
Will the lawnmower not pick them up?
I'm sure it will.
Probably the reason that they are there is that I'm always asking Bill not to collect all the leaves for his compost because I like to kick them.
AMDG,
Maybe, or probably, it's just me, but there's something slightly spooky-seeming about that picture. Could just be an after-effect of watching an X-Files episode.
At first I thought draft beer in a bottle was a contradiction in terms, but eventually I decided I must not understand the meaning of "draft." The alternative is to believe that the marketing departments of beer companies are deranged. And where would that train of thought stop?
Maybe it's opposite of volunteer beer. Or maybe it's for drinking on windy days.
AMDG,
That grass IS pretty close to the spooky tree with the face.
Which episode would that be? It's not the one where Scully and Muldur move into the perfect neighborhood, is it?
AMDG,
No. It didn't have anything to do with grass or houses or anything of that sort, it just had some very creepy moments. It was called Avatar and involved Skinner being sort of haunted by something that Mulder thought was a succubus but was more like a guardian angel.
Or maybe it's a discarded attempt at real beer.
That one was spooky.
AMDG,
Are you familiar with the one I'm talking about? In this neighborhood everything has to be just so or something rising up out of the ground and kills you. We wouldn't last 15 seconds in that neighborhood.
AMDG,
This is what's been rattling around in my head for two days:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h...h?
v=hjNteHSCCSg
AMDG,
And I'm going to have the rubber ducky song in mine.
Yes, I remember that episode. I thought it was great. I haven't seen it since it was on tv some years ago, but it was quite memorable. The basic situation seems entirely plausible.
I knew I shouldn't have clicked on that link. Now I'm going to have to find something to get that song out of my head.
I love kicking leaves too (late comment). It's like snow in a way. On this *stuff* falls on anything and everything with the temerity to be out of doors. It's so messy and I love it.
Maybe the picture is spooky because the grass is all wavy and twisted. It's some kind of odd grass that grows from bulbs. My yard is full of millions of these little white kernel things. This is the first chance I've had to see the picture on a monitor that isn't dark, so I didn't know quite what it looked like before.
AMDG,
I'm leaving for home now. I'm so happy.
AMDG,
Yes, it's as if the blades are a little too heavy and twisty, or something. I think it's reminding me a bit of some tentacled creature from a movie or something. Not its fault.
I'll be at work for two more hours. I'm not particularly happy. Although every time I have a thought like that I think "Thank you, God, that I have a decent job. I really do appreciate it, so there's no need for you to take it away in order to make me understand how fortunate I am."
Yes, I pretty much think that way myself.
AMDG,
I am going to watch "The Lives of Others" now.
AMDG,
(Who?)
For the past couple of weeks, there has been an owl hooting all night long, but this morning we saw it for the first time. We had a good time for about half an hour trying to get a picture, which was impossible with our camera, but this is kind of neat. I wish I could get it to look in Flicker the way it does on the desktop, but no.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3369711951/
It's really too bad there wasn't somebody else behind Bill and me to take pictures of us trying to get a good picture, because I'm sure it was funny to watch.
I walked a long way to try and get a shot of the moon and the owl in the same picture, but it flew away just as I got ready to shoot. Still, I liked the picture, so here it is.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...in/photostream/
AMDG,
The one with the owl is great. The other one is nice, but not as. Funny, I was stalking an owl with my camera the other day, too. It was in a dead tree across the road and looked quite picturesque, but I never got a decent shot.
Please pray for my friend Steve, who is having surgery today.
AMDG,
Done.
Ditto!
Please continue to pray for Peter Eunice and his parents, William and Phoebe. Twice, he as been almost ready to go home and his temperature has shot up. Sunday, they were just a couple of hours away from leaving the hospital when this happened. I know his parents must be terribly tired and discouraged and they have other children who must be missing them. Maybe you could offer up something special for them today.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3381661373/
AMDG,
Prayers sent!!
Thank you for keeping us posted on this, Janet. I will pray.
Thanks, Janet. So will I.
I just heard on the radio that a recent study has shown that eating too much red meat causes a 30% increase in the rate of deaths.
??????
Does this mean that if you eat too much red meat, you have a 130% chance of dying?
AMDG,
I love the fog picture on your homepage.
AMDG,
Now, Janet, you know you're not supposed to think about that--you're supposed to put red meat on your list of Things That Are Trying To Kill Me or Give Me Alzheimer's and fret about it now and then. They'll tell you when it's time to take it off the list, as has recently happened with eggs and butter.
I've been seeing headlines for that story every time I looked at a news site today. Here is CNN saying, in print, exactly what you heard:
"People who ate the most red meat had about a 30 percent greater risk of dying than those who ate the least."
Clearly (or foggily) I was responding to the comment about the red meat story. Although you don't need to worry about the fog picture, either.
I'm glad you like it. I do too--it was a lucky shot. An old friend wrote to me that she really liked it but that it was so sad and lonely looking that it was almost hard to look at. Which was interesting, because it doesn't strike me that way especially--more just sort of pensive and mysterious.
I'm with you about the pensive and mysterious. It's like a southern version of the lamp post in Narnia.
And if not eating red meat means that you aren't going to die, I'm going to go get a hamburger as soon as I finish my computer test.
AMDG,
(Guilty Pleasures) I've never been sure I quite understood this concept, so I don't think I've contributed much to those conversations, but I think that mine must be this coffee shop. I took this picture from a big, comfy leather chair where I like to sit and study if I can manage to get to Memphis early enough.
There are, of course, the regulars--the tall, bald, paunchy policeman who sits with the tall, paunchy guy that looks like a retired hell's angel--the man with the cap and big mustache that looks like an illustration from a book by E. Nesbit--and lots of medical students.
Today, while reading The Fairie Queene, I learned that it is the 51st anniversary of the day that Elvis got his official haircut to enter the army. I heard this from a woman in her forties who comes in every morning with her almost-blind father. She sometimes looks a bit careworn (but not today--the Elvin feastday must have cheered her up), but the father, who looks just like Clarence from It's a Wonderful Life, is unremittingly cheerful.
The coffee is pretty good and they give you a chocolate-covered coffee bean to boot.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3385117286/
AMDG, Janet
What coffee shop is this, Janet?
High Point Coffee on Union. Sometimes I see our Dr. friend there.
AMDG,
"...Elvin feastday..." I don't know if that was a typo or not, but in either case it's amusing, in a disconcerting sort of way ("elf" + "Elvis" does not really compute).
(Peter) OK, this is the sweetest picture I have ever seen in my life and it's also the first time I've seen a picture of this child that looked anything like the one that's on his dad's website and was taken before he went in the hospital.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3385278452/
They think he may have a staff infection OR maybe the sample was contaminated, however, his fever did not get to 100 last night and they expected it would, so this is good.
AMDG,
Elvin--definitely on purpose.
That's funny, I was more taken by the one with the mother, though it's good to see the baby looking happier here. I am really glad to hear that he's better.
It was the look on their faces. Pretty much the same expression. In the first one, the mom is beautiful--her expression is so telling--but the baby looks sooo sick. It makes me sad. But, I suppose it is some consolation when you can pick them up and hold them like that.
AMDG,
I didn't post anything about the Annunciation today, but cnb has something very nice at All Manner of Thing:
http://cburrell.wordpress.com/20...unciation-2009/
You might check out Thursday Night Gumbo also.
AMDG,
That was I.
AMDG,
I have, actually. I had sort of gotten out of the habit of checking there, because they went for a while without posting anything. I'm glad they're at it again. Good Brideshead discussion going on over there.
Ah, right. I like High Point. Should you run into our mutual acquaintance anytime soon, do give him our greetings.
Sorry, I was responding to Janet on the subject of coffee shops in Memphis, but her comment on that topic was some time back.
Don't worry, happens all the time. I assume people figure it out.
Speaking of Brideshead discussions, Janet mentioned there was one here a while ago. As the Evelyn Waugh Society's membership officer for Continental Europe (regional membership: 1) I do have a vague notion I should keep up with things like this. Where do I find it?
I think you read it at the time. At least, I told you about it and ask you to read it and you wrote back to me with thoughts about it.
AMDG,
The official discussion started on May 2, but we had already been talking about it before then.
AMDG,
Now that I read the Brideshead thread I realise I have read it before (or some of it at least). It was then that it first occurred to me that Charles Ryder's dilemma (give up an aristocratic Catholic bride or go against one's conscience) is exactly the choice Waugh would have faced himself if his annulment hadn't come through.
I hadn't noticed - perhaps having read the thread too early - that somebody signing themselves "Baffled" has been editing Aurel Kolnai's memoirs. That's exciting news. He's a philosopher who should really be a lot more famous than he seems to be (or am I just displaying my ignorance of how famous he really is? I do sometimes assume that if I haven't heard of a person they can't be famous, which is rarely really true).
There was also some talk of Anglophilia. A friend has been recommending for some time that I read Ian Buruma's "Voltaire's Coconuts", a book on that very theme (or rather, "Anglomania" as I think he calls it).
I made cauliflower cheese for dinner, and now have to go and scrape the cheese off plates and cutlery.
Baffled was Francesca.
AMDG,
What did your mother and sister make of the book, Janet?
And glum am I.
Not because of Francesca's book, though.
Why are you glum?
Paul, I don't remember what they said. It didn't lead to any interesting conversation, though.
AMDG,
Well, Maclin's glum and Ryan is down. How depressing. BUT, I am going to a book sale now, so if I see any self-help books for the glum and down I will buy them for you--if they are paperbacks--no self-help book is worth two bucks.
AMDG,
Please, no, not a self-help book! Are you trying to plunge me all the way down into the pit?!
I don't know (to answer your question). Maybe it's astrological or something.
In that case you are in luck. The only self-help book I saw was The Manual of Lipid Disorders and it was hardback, so I didn't get it.
And none of the children's books looked like they had lead in them, so that was a big disappointment.
AMDG,
glum... I rememeber a firestorm starting with that word
This morning when I turned on the headlights, right in the middle of the pool of light, was a big tawny cat sitting sphinxlike amidst several clumps of leaves from defunct daffodils and incipient irses. This little scene was framed by our huge old pecan tree on the right which had just the right shade of green lichen growing up the side. And it dawned on me that there was nothing that I could do to capture this picture for anyone else. I could never photograph it or describe it in any way that would convey exactly what I saw or the absolute stillness of the moment. This small circle of beauty was just for me. I wonder if when we get to heaven we’ll be able to share these things. Maybe in the presence of the Beatific Vision, they’ll seem unimportant, but maybe not.
AMDG,
I think the Beatific Vision will include use being able to see everything God has done, and thus all of Creation, including the cat and the flowers, must be visible.
"Manual of Lipid Disorders"--I read that first as "Limpid Disorders." Sounds like a band name.
I just put a book called Surprised by Hope on my Amazon wish list. I keep thinking there's a joke in that somewhere but I can't quite put my finger on it.
I have that same experience (Janet and the cat) on an almost daily basis. Often I end up squandering my own enjoyment by trying to capture it with a camera. In many cases that's not just practically but theoretically impossible, because other things (e.g. sound and scent) are involved.
Uh-oh. I said share, didn't I?
AMDG,
OK, so my 2 year old grandson got hold of my daughter's cellphone and sent 15 text messages to various people on her contact list. So, she got a call from her poor husband who is frantic because his boss wants to know what L. meant by sending him a message that said, "QqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqCall me when you get this message. Lqo"
AMDG,
Your grandchild has funny name, although I guess it's not any more strange than his father's. Or is that the father's boss's name? I think I may have read a scifi story once in which there was a character named Lqo.
I see I'm going to have to restrain my impulse to gripe about certain words and phrases--I'm giving some of y'all a complex.
Oh, and I forgot to mention how impressed I am that your two year old grandson can spell his name.
I wasn't traumatized by my vocabularian gaff, I was just trying to be considerate of your sensibilities.
AMDG,
That's pretty funny, Janet. Our mutual friend Aaron says that he gets lots of "pocket calls" from people -- his name is at the top of everyone's contact list, since it starts with two A's, so whenever anyone inadvertently presses the call button, he's the one who gets called. So he listens to lots of change rattling in people's pockets, people ordering lattes in Starbucks, that kind of thing. I apparently once called him from the middle of Aldi, so he got to listen to me mutter about potatoes and frozen spinach, until he got bored and hung up.
I appreciate that, Janet. My sensibility would probably benefit by keeping its mouth shut about some of these things, though.
One of our children did something similar, with more old-fashioned technology. She had to have been under two, because we moved out of the house where this took place about the time she turned two. She was a bit of a precocious talker. Our phone was on the wall. My wife had been talking to her mother while holding the child, and probably allowing her to talk to "Ganny" (Granny). After my wife hung up the phone, she stood there talking to somebody else--me, I suppose--for a few minutes, holding the child and with her back to the phone. A few minutes later we realized that the babbling about "Ganny" seemed rather purposeful, and then noticed that there was a voice coming out of the phone. The child had taken it upon herself to pick up the receiver and hit the re-dial button, and was carrying on a conversation of sorts with a somewhat puzzled Ganny.
" I appreciate that, Janet. My sensibility would probably benefit by keeping its mouth shut about some of these things, though."
Oh, I don't know. It makes me laugh.
AMDG,
This reminds me of something from long ago, something a college girlfriend once said to me. Like a lot of pop music fans, I have a tendency to speak very contemptuously of music I deem unworthy. I'm not nearly as bad about it as I was then, though, thanks to her. I was slagging some band and she suddenly interrupted me and said "You know, it's really obnoxious when you do that." I was, as they say, convicted: I knew she was right, and tried to tone it down.
Wonder whatever happened to her. I liked her. I hope she's had a good life. We actually were sort of a good match but circumstances.... Wouldn't it be funny if she reads this blog?
I just got an email from someone named Mezeh and the subject line: Find out what you've been missing. The message was "Qwo 9534825."
Do you think maybe it came from Ryan (my grandson, not the highly-trained English teacher)?
AMDG,
Either that, or he's put you in touch with the alien underground. Qwo is another good sci-fi name.
Peter is home from the hospital. Thanks be to God! They have a picture of him on his tricycle on their FB page. If we had been in the hospital that long, they would have to teach us how to walk again.
AMDG,
Thanks, indeed. That's great news.
Thank you, God.
Yes, good news indeed, Janet!
So, I stopped at Walgreen's on the way to work to get some things I needed and as I was going in, a street person came up to me and asked for some money. I gave him some money and at that moment, the manager came out and told the guy that he had to get off the property and the guy started yelling and the manager started yelling and some unlovely language ensued. I thought it might be best to be inside the store. Then, after a bit the manager came in limping and when I left there were 3 police cars in the parking lot.
Then, I got behind a red Saturn with the license plate--666 LRD.
But worst of all, when I got my coffee, they had change the shape of the cups and the lids. Now I feel like my whole world is dissolving.
AMDG,
If there's one thing we've been taught over the past decades, it's the importance of being open to change. So whether it's new coffee paraphernalia or Satan assuming control of the world, you don't want to be one of these people who just can't adjust to new things.
Don't make me laugh! I'm determined to be in a bad mood.
AMDG,
Satan always puts me in a bad mood, too. To say nothing of unfamiliar coffee cups and lids.
Just kidding.
AMDG,
Google's April Fool's Day stuff is very funny. Gmail automation:
http://mail.google.com/mail/help...ilot/
index.html
I've been looking around for some April Fool's Day jokes, but I haven't found many. That Google one is pretty good. They have some funny reviews up today at ClassicsToday.com. This one is my favourite. The others are listed along the right-hand side.
Does anyone know who Kirk Whalum is? Have I asked this before?
The schoolwork is done, but I'm pretty busy work-wise.
AMDG,
The name rings a bell. I think you have mentioned him before but I can't remember what you said about him.
Funny, I opened that and it says, "In the Garden," which is what he's playing right now, right over my head. He's very good. Works here. I think I did say something when he first came here.
AMDG,
Yes, I thought it had something to do with him being there, or appearing there, or something. Pretty good memory work, for me.
Yes, and it was even something bad about me.
AMDG,
Oh, but wait, it was something I said twice--par for the course.
AMDG,
Two other April Fool's Day jokes (sort of funny):
IPv6 over Social Networks.
Galaxy Zoo: an unusual new class of galaxy cluster.
I don't think remembering (albeit very hazily) that you mentioned something before qualifies as remembering something bad. I'd have to stretch to consider mentioning something a second time after an interval of ? is even much of a lapse, much less something bad.
I've been very busy this afternoon and haven't had time to look at those, cnb. Later, I hope. In the meantime, I hope everyone has looked at Google's announcements, and seen CADIE's blog. Scroll down and read the posts in order to get the full effect.
I looked at that this morning when you linked to it. It's really funny. I just didn't have time to say anything then.
AMDG,
She is coming to a somewhat sad end. Better look quick: she may disappear at midnight.
What if she wasn't really an April Fool's joke?
AMDG,
I disbelieve in real AI on philosophical grounds, so I don't think she's possible.
Last night, a man in a Kentucky sweatshirt walked into our classroom to gloat. He was leaning on a cane, so maybe he thought people wouldn't hit a man with a cane. I don't know. Things are pretty emotional in Memphis this week.
AMDG,
I guess you're talking about basketball? Than which few things are more boring?
Well, ok, I exaggerate, there are lots of things more boring. But really: I just can't get interested in watching it, and it gets on my nerves because the season never seems to end.
I could find this easily enough online, I'm sure, but I'll just ask: what Memphis team is involved?
University of Memphis and I don't keep up with it much anymore, although I don't find it boring, but if you were in this city, you could not avoid it. In fact, it's been all over the national news too, apparently, that our coach has left for Kentucky.
Thing is, this basketball team was about the only thing the city had going for it.
AMDG,
Speaking of Memphis and decline: I heard a very fine singer/songwriter a couple of weeks ago, Spencer Bohren, who had a song (or was it just the song's introduction?) about that. He described going to downtown Memphis expecting to find this lively music scene and finding it abandoned.
I did notice something noisy about Kentucky in the sports section headlines this morning.
"Thing is, this basketball team was about the only thing the city had going for it."
Is this a parody of sports-journalistic hyperbole, or are things really that desperate?
To think - a city on the banks of the Mississippi, with a theatre where Houdini and Sarah Bernhardt performed, and a shop like Schwab's to pull in the tourists, to be reduced to relying on a basketbaal team for its profile ...
I'll Janet give the definitive answer to that, but on the face of it I don't dismiss it. Memphis wouldn't be the only once-glorious city to have withered away over the last fifty years or so, losing whatever commercial base had made it prominent in the first place, with other things following.
But let us not forget Graceland.
Aw, now. The tap water's really good, too. And Memphis hardly ever gets hit by tornadoes, and the big earthquake that's been supposed to happen my entire lifetime hasn't yet.
Writing that last post, I literally forgot that I don't live in Memphis any more. My current town has no basketball team, so we have nothing to get sad about, except maybe the late unpleasantness over to the Sons of the Confederacy.
I have never visited Graceland. When we were driving Paul back to Memphis, it crossed my mind that he might want to go there because for some reason lots of people from Europe do. So, I prepared to sacrifice myself and asked him if he was interested. I don't think that I phrased the question in any leading manner, such as, "You don't want to go to Graceland, do you?" But, happily he said that although his wife had told him that he should make sure to go, he didn't really want to. I could have sent him with Bill, though. Bill has had to go there for a job-related event. Unfortunately, the one day that Paul had for site-seeing was a Monday when everything is closed and it was cold and windy by the river.
AMDG,
I can't tell, Paul, whether you are being sincere or sarcastic. I had never been to Schwab's before we went and I wondered what you must have thought about it.
AMDG,
The political "leaders" of Memphis are so horrible, that it casts pall over everything. The crime rate is terrible. Even Paul said after his first day, "Well, I've been in Memphis a whole day and haven't been shot." And the racism issue is trotted out at every opportunity and discussed ad nauseum. The basketball team is about the only thing that Memphians can discuss with any degree of harmony.
AMDG,
What is Schwab's? Sounds vaguely familiar but I may be thinking of the financial company.
Spencer Bohren's Memphis song/story included a visit to Graceland. He described it as one of the few places on his musical pilgrimage where he saw signs of life, and said he would have liked to chat with the visitors but he didn't know enough Japanese.
Your description, Janet, sounds like the city--Baltimore--portrayed in The Wire.
Birmingham would have gone that route as the steel industry declined, but managed to transition to health care as an economic engine and is pretty prosperous.
It's the last of the old drugstores in Memphis. It's on Beale street--three, maybe 4 stories. You can literally get everything there. A good deal of their stock is very old. Unfortunately, you can meet all your Santeria needs there also, but that's all in a corner, and I just avoided it.
You can get some idea from the comments here:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/a-schwab...s-store-
memphis
AMDG,
Here's an article about someone's visit Schwab's.
http://www.bootsnall.com/article...-
tennessee.html
AMDG,
The day I went to Memphis, it turned out everything was closed except Schwab's and the second-hand bookshops (it's a good thing Janet was there to show me where they were). I really enjoyed Schwab's, which just about manages not to be a tourist trap, and among other things I bought a child-sized kitchen apron with a clematis print and a lacy fringe. I don't think I noticed any Santeria stuff.
We went to take a look at the theatre, which I read somewhere was really worth seeing just for its own sake, but they wouldn't let us in to take a peek because their insurance only covers tour parties (or some such feeble shadow of an excuse). So we looked admiringly at the names affixed to the pavement outside, and went and stood on the windswept riverbank.
I was delighted just to have seen the Mississippi, having arduously picked my way through "Hucklebury Finn" as a twelve-year-old (without being able to begin to imagine what sort of accents the spelling was intended to represent.)
When Janet asked whether I'd like to see Graceland, she did it with such bright optimism that I felt I ought to let her down gently.
I've just read the link you provided, Janet, and I have to say I think Schwab's is outrageously misrepresented. It's cluttered and the floorboards creak, but it's nothing like so smelly and decrepit as the writer makes out. (Or if it is, it's gone down hill very fast in the last 3 or 4 years.)
That's true. I don't remember it smelling at all and I'm very sensitive to that. Plus, I don't remember the merchandise being dirty or there being so much dust. They have a lot of old stuff there, but they have to have quite a bit of new, also, because they do a lot of business. So, I almost didn't post it, but some aspects, like the size and the large variety and types of merchandise, he got right.
AMDG,
"He"? I assumed from the tone that the writer was a precocious and somewhat over-fastidious teenage girl (until I got to the mention of business cards at the end, which was slightly jarring in an unexamined way). Not that teenage boys, if they write at all, don't write badly (and I should know) but this isn't a style I'd have imagined had a masculine mind behind it.
I'd been trying to remember the name of the theatre; googling Memphis+Houdini+Bernhardt turned it up: it's the Orpheum Theater, which does look very grand (if you scroll down far enough).
When I was a girl, it was a movie theater. I used to love to sit up in the balcony.
AMDG,
"He" Ha, I guess you are right, although you can't tell from the name. I just automatically assume people with business cards are men, even though I have them myself. I've been told that I'm stuck in the 50's and I suppose them that says it are correct.
AMDG,
Well, the Santeria stuff is tucked in a corner right inside the front door, so if you want it, you can certainly find it.
I used to work for the River City Writers' Series at the university, and Schwab's was one place we'd take visiting writers, for a kind of "get this; this is Memphis" experience. I remember taking the poet Jorie Graham down there; she tried on lots of hats.
Amen to what Janet says about the city government. It's beyond depressing.
I think you must be crazy to try one hats unless you have a can of Rid with you.
AMDG,
I don't mean YOU have to be crazy to try one hats, I mean ONE has to be crazy to try on hats.
AMDG,
Yes, I understood that "you" to be general. And, well . . . let's just say that sometimes stereotypes fit.
I might have thought it was a Halloween display; it was about the right time of year.
Would that have been where your sister worked, Janet?
My sister? I'm confused.
AMDG,
Hey Maclin, did you see this:
http://www.riskybusinessblog.com...lout-
movie.html
AMDG,
I thought you said she'd worked in a cinema in her youth. Might be getting things mixed up.
OH, her boyfriend worked in one, but not that one.
AMDG,
Yes, I did see that. How did we both see it? I never heard of that site before. Must have been linked from somewhere we both read, but I don't remember (it was yesterday).
Anyway...that's what the world needs, alright.... I have to say, though, that, bad as her general philosophy is (not to mention her writing), Rand had a valid point in her analysis of the dynamics of socialism, which of course was based on her experience under communism, and I've detected some of that at work in our current economic situation.
Mere Comments
AMDG,
Well, I keep telling myself that if I was a better person, I would just offer it up and go try to do something constructive with my day, but the problem is that I can do anything because I feel so bad and what I really want is for people to feel sorry for me, so please do.
AMDG,
Will do. You only have to ask.
I assume you meant "can't" do anything? Well, either way, I will commence a period of feeling sorry for you. Poor Janet...do you mean you're sick or that you're down in the dumps? Or both?
Thank you for reading my mind instead of my typo. It makes things so much easier. And thank you for observing a sorrowful period.
I am indeed sick, on the first day of my vacation, which leads me to be down in the dumps. I mean, I CAN'T READ out of a book, so that I can't start on all the lovely books that I planned to read this week AND I had a horrible time doing my History assignment which is due at midnight, but I just managed to write a horrible paragraph on Manifest Destiny, so that will be ok. Actually, the computer screen is a bit blurry, too, but it doesn't make my eyes burn as badly as paper.
At the moment, I'm reminding myself a bit of my second daughter who, when sick, would come into the living room, sit down with her back against the front door (so we couldn't escape) and force us all to be miserable with her.
Gack. Sounds miserable. What have you got that makes your eyes burn when you read? I occasionally have a headache that keeps me from wanting to read, but usually reading is the great consolation of being sick.
I have been meaning to ask you when your vacation starts. This would indeed put one down in the dumps.
It probably isn't helping your mood that HaloScan is having spasms again.
I haven't had HaloScan problems yet. I think it's just allergies. Everything is green with pollen.
But I was sick to my stomach also. That doesn't keep you from reading though.
AMDG,
Oh, and big time headache. I want you to be able to share the whole lot.
AMDG,
Please accept more pity and sympathy.
I'm such a baby. But not an ungrateful baby. Thank you and Paul too. I'm better today, unlike Lord Marchmain who really wasn't.
AMDG,
Please accept even more pity and sympathy. Get well soon!!
Thank you. Since I just helped my husband put a riding mower on the back of the truck, I must be doing better.
AMDG,
That's good news. I was feeling sorry for you, too, but hoping you'd rally in time to make the long drive. You must come with energy, because as Father informed us today at Mass, there will be many opportunities to pour ourselves out as sacrifices of love to Jesus this week, like unto the woman with her jar of costly spikenard. And that's just at church. I can imagine that there might also possibly be sacrificial aspects to spending days in close proximity to the Thomas family. I can think of lots of terms which suggest something about the atmosphere here, but "rest cure" wouldn't be one of them.
On the other hand, we most definitely won't be asking you to heave riding mowers onto the backs of trucks.
Does anybody have any idea what spikenard smells like? A most unpromising name for a fragrance.
It probably smells better in Aramaic.
AMDG,
Well, this says that "it's" aroma is "warm, misty, and heavy." Perhaps it also stands in solidarity with fog.
Interesting how hard it is to describe a smell. Also how hard it is to do scratch-n-sniff on the web.
Yeah, I was thinking earlier that even if I knew exactly how spikenard smelled, I wouldn't know how to begin to describe it. Of course there are those things that Sally mentioned. It could be heavy or musty or light or sweet, but you still couldn't conjure up that exact scent unless you were familiar with it. But then, when you ARE familiar with it, scent is the most haunting and provocative of the senses. A slight whiff of some aroma from your childhood can bring back a whole slew of memories.
AMDG,
Since I just helped my husband put a riding mower on the back of the truck, I must be doing better.
Yes, I think you are
And anti is staying up too late again. I worry that you're going to damage your health, child.
Oh, I don't think I ever had much health to speak of
(Conscience of Medical Professionals)
I don't usually pass on stuff like this but this is from the USCCB site:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is inviting public comment on a proposal to rescind an important federal regulation issued in December. The regulation implements and enforces three federal laws protecting the conscience rights of health care providers, especially those at risk of being discriminated against because of their moral or religious objection to abortion.
http://www.usccb.org/consciencep...enceprotection/
There's a place on the website where you can send a message to HHS if you are interested. This whole issue is scary to me.
AMDG,
It ought to be scary. I've thought several times recently of writing a longish post on the trend represented by this and many other developments that are not new but are accelerating. Then I think "why bother?" I'd mostly be preaching to the choir, and anyway other people have said what I would say. The writing is on the wall. It's a terrible and helpless feeling to see a major and destructive cultural shift in progress. I don't think it's absolutely inevitable, but it has the momentum right now.
Yeah, I think that's why I want it to be Lent all the time.
AMDG,
(Dreams) (the original post is off the front page now): when the alarm went off this morning, I said "Aww...I was just about to test my nuclear device."
It was a reactor, not a bomb, though. I think.
The other day I woke up with these words in my mind, "My name Jose Jimenez." How long ago has that been?
AMDG,
Gad. 40 years, minimum. Maybe 45.
I was looking for a YouTube video, but there was only one and it's been removed.
AMDG,
I'm glad you knew what I was talking about, though, because, well, it's no fun being the only dinosaur on the block.
AMDG,
Shall we go off on a baby-boomer nostalgia trip?
Winky-Dink? Crusader Rabbit? Which Mouseketeer did you have a crush on? (maybe that's a guy question--the answer is usually Annette.)
I know you will find this hard to believe, but when I read the blog, I always but my Winky-Dink screen on the monitor and try to make letters by connecting certain key points in the text. You'd be amazed what I have learned this way.
My youngest sister used to look so much like Annette that there were boys at one of the Fraternity Houses at Vanderbilt that use to sing the Mickey Mouse song when she walked by. She didn't much enjoy this noteriety.
AMDG,
There's good news at All Manner of Things. I can't figure out how to cut an paste on Sally's computer, but you should go look.
AMDG,
That's great news. A part of me is thinking "boy, is he in for it," but that, as my father often said about any number of things, is all part of it.
What, does Sally have one of those off-brand computers?
Sleeping late on Good Friday morning seems somehow slightly wrong.
By the way, here's a link. The news is well down in the comments.
http://cburrell.wordpress.com/20...little-darling/
She has a mouse that looks like a yo-yo with no right-click button.
AMDG,
Yep, that's the one. Named after a fruit.
Actually I used to be a partisan of that brand, back when the alternative was DOS and Windows 3.1, both of which I hated with burning intensity, not so much on my own behalf as on behalf of the discipline of software design. But Microsoft products got better, and Apple's got worse, over a period of years in the '90s, and I realized one day that I actually liked Windows NT4 better than MacOS. When I was trying to settle on one or the other, the right-click feature on Windows was an important factor. A few years ago Apple finally surrendered and added it.
About the Macintosh, btw, in fairness I have to note that my daughter & her husband recently acquired a new one, and I have to admit it's *really* cool.
Ok, this really ought to be a post, and I probably ought to wait a couple of days, but...well, I'm not. This may be of interest only to those who are familiar with some of the personalities who frequent this blog. One of them is anti-aphrodite, who undertook, as a Lenten sacrifice, to write a happy story. She kept the resolution in a most creative way. Meet Hungry and Curious:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
There's good news at All Manner of Things.
Wow!!!
She kept the resolution in a most creative way.
Only because our great host suggested the idea to her. Many thanks again, Sir!!
And since she'll be offline the whole day today (and probably tomorrow too), a Blessed Easter to everyone, y'all!!!
(Trip to Sally's, #1)
My daughter kept the cat while we were gone, but I might have just taken the feline with me if I'd know that this was going to be in the rental car:
http://www.facebook.com/album.ph...4&
id=1413619572
Sorry for the furry picture.
AMDG,
Facebook demands a login.
Nice try, but I ain't going through that door. Nor Twitter's neither.
OH, sorry. I must have copied the address at the top instead of the one they provide to allow access. But anyway, here it is on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3438013407/
And I applaud your wisdom in this FB matter. If it wasn't the best way to keep up with family, I would be gone.
AMDG,
I could use one of those buttons.
(Trip to Sally's, #2)
So we stopped for dinner at Crackerbarrel, where I saw this DVD and spent some time wondering, "Could there possibly be such a thing?"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3438945342/
AMDG,
The surprise there to me is that Cracker Barrel is selling it. Wonder do they have any Black Sabbath?
Well, the thing that puzzled me was "Favorite Episodes." I mean, are there actually people who are discriminating enough to be able to tell one episode from another?
I think the Monkees are about par for the course for CB. I didn't see any Black Sabbath.
Or is there a deeper significance to your question. I begin to suspect there may be.
AMDG,
Oh, I see--I thought you just meant the fact that they were in CB at all. Though my response is the same--not at all surprised that there would be zealous fans.
[pause]
mmm hmm, yep, just as I thought: google "monkees collectibles"
And I didn't intend any deeper significance, but now that you mention it...
Speaking of Facebook:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/
...=t2test_techmon
I'm not surprised that there are zealous fans, just that they think there is more than one episode.
AMDG,
Well, that article makes my point exactly. All my kids are on FB and so we communicate briefly on a fairly regular basis. This would be pretty difficult otherwise. I am constantly, though, trying to fend off prospective "friends" without hurting their feelings.
But this isn't an ad for FB. It's a mixed blessing at best.
AMDG,
(Death Wish) Today was obviously Kill Yourself on I-55 Day. I wish someone had let me know beforehand, because I would have taken another route.
AMDG,
(Death Wish) The stretch of I-10 across Mobile Bay, known locally as the Bayway, really brings that out in people. The local paper has a feature called Sound Off where you can call and leave a voice message which may be printed if it's amusing or stupid enough. I've often thought of calling it, identifying myself as the Grim Reaper, and giving someone the Bayway Death Wish of the Month Award. Never followed through on it, partly because there wouldn't be enough variey--the award would almost always go to someone tailgating at 85 mph in fog or rain while talking on the phone.
Note to pop music fans: Amazon's daily mp3 special is...heh...The Specials. $1.99 for the album. If you like ska (and don't have this), a great bargain. And if you don't like ska, what's wrong with you?
What is ska?
Becca just called to say that Dr. Thomas Dillon, the President of Thomas Aquinas College has been killed in an automobile accident in Ireland. His wife is in the hospital there. Please pray for the repose of his soul and for Mrs. Dillon and for the students and faculty of the college.
Becca is in Fort Worth waiting for a plane. I think it is difficult for her being alone and away from campus while this is happening, so please pray for her, too.
AMDG,
That's terrible. I'll pray.
Not to mention the staff of the college. You'd think I would remember the staff.
To answer your earlier question--you probably know what reggae is, right? Ska is a lot like that, but usually more uptempo and generally upbeat (though there's an offshoot, punk ska, that uses the same basic rhythm to get a more angry energy).
Well, this is getting to be old. Please pray for the repose of the soul of Bob Firehammer, Catholic homeschooling father of five who was killed in an automobile accident today.
AMDG,
If all of y'all could just stay out of cars for the rest of the day, I would appreciate it.
AMDG,
Or off bikes. Wasn't he riding his bike, and got hit? Madelyn (his daughter) called Ada (my daughter) this evening, but I'm not sure I've got the story straight.
My heart is breaking for Debra and the kids. We're praying for Bob here, and will pray for Dr. Dillon and his family, too. What a sad day.
A sad day indeed. Why, why, why?
And it's weird that it was this morning that you, Janet, were talking about how crazily people were driving.
Well, yesterday anyway.
AMDG,
Prayers said.
Hey, whatever happened to beauty and truth and that's not all you need to know?
AMDG,
Heh--that's been gone for a week or two. I guess I just got tired of reading it. It's still true.
Zombies--I see that there are a couple of additions to the Happy Zombies. I haven't had time to read them yet.
AMDG,
Happy zombies: they're still happy. Now that Lent is over, though, I worry about them.
Yes, those were my thoughts exactly.
AMDG,
One day, I in the house and Bill came in and said that it sounded like you could hear water pouring out of a drain in front of the crabapple tree. So, I went out to listen and I could definitely hear what he was talking about, but to me it sounded like something scraping, scrabbling and scrooging under the ground. It sounded like it wasn't far down so, he got a shovel and started digging and after just a few inches, the noise stopped. There wasn't anything there to be seen. But then, I looked up and realized that my beautiful tree was dead, dead, dead--not a hint of green or any kind of growth. I wonder what it was?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3460355750/
AMDG,
This sounds like the beginning of an X-Files episode.
True, and as you can see my scary tree with the little face which is next to the crab apple is completely hollow inside. (Note I finally have azaleas in the background here.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3460580882/
And yet, hollow though it is, it seems to be making a comeback and is even bearing fruit, although the fruit is too small to see in this picture.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...in/photostream/
AMDG,
If it bears fruit, will you eat thereof?
Indeed I will. If I can get to it before the wasps.
AMDG,
Which I guess is ok, because Genesis doesn't say anything about the Tree of Scary.
Well, I ran over a great big ole snake on the road a couple of days ago, so I'm probably safe. I mean, like 10 feet long. It was the biggest snake I've ever seen.
AMDG,
That's scary indeed. I don't suppose you were able to determine whether it had the characteristic spade-shaped head and overhanging eye sockets of the pit viper family, both most easily observed by looking straight down on the creature, which would identify it as belonging to one of three of the four species of venomous snake native to north America, i.e. the water moccasin, the copperhead, and the rattlesnake?
No, I'm pretty sure it was a king snake--the same kind that I took a step and found myself straddling one day in the front yard. Not that I don't see copperheads in the street sometimes.
I'm beginning to get a bit worried that there are snakes in my swimming pool, because I know that there are a lot of frogs in the swimming pool.
AMDG,
It happens (snakes in the pool).
We really see surprisingly few snakes here, considering the location--woods + water in the deep south. Though there was a funny incident last year, which I'll tell later.
Yep, I know it happens. I was basing that on prior experience.
AMDG,
Today is anti's birthday.
Yep, I just sent her a birthday email message, but let's say it here, too:
Happy Birthday, anti-aphrodite!
She's getting up in years now: twenty-six.
Many happy returns, Antiaphrodite.
Happy birthday, Anti!
Janet, how did you know it was Anti's birthday? Are you like, omniscient or something?
Well, let's just say she knew you were going to ask that question.
I saw it on Facebook, but I'm curious as to how my omniscient friend knew.
AMDG,
You know, I'm not totally sure. Did I remember it from last year? Seems implausible, although I do remember that she was 25 last time. Maybe she mentioned it on her blog.
I am feeling the call of Facebook...must resist...
Maybe it's the effect of novocaine or laughing gas or something like that.
AMDG,
Happy Birthday, Anti!
I think that flower on your homepage is purple or pink wood sorrel. I love it. I used to plant bunches of it around my old yard.
AMDG,
(sorrel) I do believe you're right, Janet. Funny that you should bring it up, because just yesterday I was looking at a patch of what was probably white clover and realized "hold on--this is what clover is supposed to look like." I note that sorrel is also called "false shamrock." Fooled me.
Well, I've been thinking about how much I like red clover and how I wish I could get a better picture than this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3464657012/
without getting killed by either a speeding car or a driver filled with road rage. This doesn't begin to show how gorgeous this corner really is.
AMDG,
Hmmm, I don't know, that's pretty gorgeous.
Thanks for greetings, y'all!! It was raining over here yesterday, so I enjoyed the cool weather.
Wow, I'm twenty-six. It's so weird!
Again, thanks everyone. Y'all are the best!!!
I looked out my window at work and saw this, so I had to run out and take a picture.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3464934423/
AMDG,
Yeah, that's purple, all right.
The other day my wife brought home some purple...oh heck, what are they?...petunias, I think. Really dark, striking purple. Not my favorite color in general but this is sort of hypnotic. I'll see if I can get a picture.
I remember as a child with a coloring book, coloring something purple and green, and having someone tell me those colors didn't go together. Nyah nyah nyah they do too.
LOL. I will remember in the future to avoid purple.
AMDG,
Trip to Sally's #3
I know that this is not particularly thrilling or anything, but it is rather curious. This is the bed in the hotel where we spent the night on the way to NC. Note the bedspread. It's not folded or pulled back. I know the economy is bad, but this seemed a bit extreme.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3464934423/
AMDG,
We stayed in a motel--cheap for its area, but not that cheap in absolute terms--a few years ago where I suspected the sheets not to have been changed since the last guest. I didn't think I was particularly fastidious but I found that sort of creepy.
That makes me a bit queasy. I always try not to think about what may have gone on in hotel rooms where I am sleeping. We stayed in a motel once, out of dire necessity, where there were lots of teenagers and cars pulling in and out all night long. I didn't even pull the bedcovers back, much less sleep in between the sheets.
AMDG,
Trip to Sally's #4--OK, best for last.
This is my favorite business in Sally's town.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3466018964/
AMDG,
I'm relieved to learn that it's meant for the carp, not squeezed out of the carp for consumption by people. If you google "carp juice" one of the first half-dozen hits is a paper on "toxic hepatitis associated with carp juice ingestion."
Thanks for the research. I hadn't investigated, but I'll be sure not to drink any.
Today is Administrative Professionals day and I'm about to go be given a free lunch.
AMDG,
The wake for our friend, Bob, was on Monday night at a local parish. There was a some sort of a prayer service with readings going on when I came in and then the people came up to see the family and view the body and then we prayed a Rosary. It was, of course, very sad and people seemed to be even more distressed than I would have expected. Part of this, for me at least, is that as I grow older, every funeral I attend is every funeral that I have ever attended and there were several people there who had had tragic deaths in their families in the last year or so, or who have someone on the verge of death now.
When it came time for the Rosary, Father gave a little explanation to the non-Catholics there of why we pray the Rosary. He said, "You know, nobody knows and loves a son like his mother." And then he said that when we pray the Rosary, we are looking at Our Lord through the tenderest and most loving eyes of the one who loved Him the most. This really struck me because I had never before thought about it in this way--not just meditating on what Mary and Jesus experienced in the mysteries, but viewing them through her eyes. As we prayed the Rosary, the church was filled with a profound sense of peace. Afterwards, we sang the Litany of the Saints and it was so very exactly the right thing to do. I am so grateful for these gifts that the Church has for us that sustain us in our sorrow. I'm not sure how I could do without them.
AMDG,
Janet, a belated Happy Administrative Professionals day!
Thanks Paul. I'm just wondering when I went from being an Administrative Assistant to being an Administrative Professional. I just want to be a Secretary. I wonder what they will call us next year. I think the whole thing is kind of silly, but I got a gift certificate to Amazon, so that's nice.
AMDG,
At one job I had we used to call ourselves Information Technology Professionals (or something like that), and then crack up.
"I am so grateful for these gifts that the Church has for us that sustain us in our sorrow."
Me, too. I've sometimes had that thought at Protestant funerals.
So it's nearly the end of the shift, and folks around me have suddenly started singing "Crazy For You"...in unison.
Help. Help me.
I'm very sorry, anti, that your desperate cry for help has come too late, at least for me. It's been four hours since you managed to tap out your SOS, and by now either they've stopped, or you've escaped or gone mad.
*hugging her straitjacket and chewing ice*
I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay...
I hope your prognosis is not too bad. Considering that it's midnight or so there, I presume you aren't at work any more, so the source of the problem is removed?
Well, not too bad, considering. I've managed set aside the ice already. And yes, I'm at home, going through a round of metal therapy.
Metal therapy--great idea--I could use some of that, too, after the umpteenth interruption of the morning. I'm happy to hear you're recovering.
Must be something going around. I had an email from my wife earlier in which she worried that she might kill somebody if the phone equipment next to her office didn't stop beeping (it requires intervention for some problem and the responsible people won't do anything about it).
Metal therapy: the new yoga. Or not.
There's something going around, and it's not (just) swine flu.
I'm sorry you keep getting interruptions this morning, Sir.
"the new yoga.." yeah, I like that.
Interruptions always seem to increase when I'm trying really hard to focus. For a change.
The Law of Distractions: where the amount of interruptions is inversely proportional to the level of focus.
Very good--one suggestion, though: maybe it should be "intended level of focus."
And now I'm going to try to focus again, having put away lunch.
Ah, intent. That factor which so deserves the variable "X".
(What am I saying? I'll go try and sleep now. Have a good day, Sir, and y'all!)
I am drinking some of Nick's home brew. It's his patented "Stinky Beer."
He has just returned from Duncan's down the road, where they and some mates were playing cards. They were drinking Duncan's "Stale Ale."
Well, that doesn't sound too good, but sometimes a sort of contrarian marketing plan will work. If Nick has global beer empire ambitions. Or maybe even local micro-brewery ones. There's an establishment here that specializes in "ugly biscuits"--a delicious mess of biscuit, scrambled egg, and sausage. Cardiac health professionals recommend eating no more than one per year.
"The Law of Distractions: where the amount of interruptions is inversely proportional to the level of focus."
Exam week. What can I say?
(I knew this would Happen) This is nuts. We have to receive Communion by hand. We can't shake hands at the Sign of Peace (which is ok by me), but everybody held hands during the Our Father.
AMDG,
Exam week. What can I say?
"Augh!!!" seems appropriate.
In our church, they banned the pax altogether, which delighted me, and banned the chalice, which raised my hopes that there'd be no eucharistic ministers, but there was still one. Still, down from six to one is progress.
I don't think we are going to have any Eucharistic ministers, but I'm sure we'll be back to normal soon.
AMDG,
Normal, ha!
Even more nuts, apparently someone--pig farmers, maybe?--wants the thing not to be called "swine flu." It's supposed to be N1H1 now (or something).
I made my peace with the peace a long time ago, but I don't cooperate with the hand-holding at the Our Father. At least the peace is officially part of the liturgy. Fortunately at our parish the hand-holding never altogether caught on--some people do it, but more don't.
Well, shortly after we first moved to our parish we were publicly excoriated for not holding hands at the Our Father. I mean, we were in a meeting about PRE with almost the entire parish there and a woman was yelling at us. Our pastor stood up for us in the meeting, but shortly afterwards, he told us in private that he thought we were going to have to do it. And since it wasn't morally wrong, we decided we would, although we still hate it. I would have to say, though, that it was from that time that we were able to do some of the positive things that we have done in the parish.
AMDG,
Sigur Ros
Have you seen this?
http://imagejournal.org/page/blo...n-roll-
paradise
AMDG,
That's a good lesson about the hand-holding. But, I must say, one I did not want to hear.
Hand-holding is really popular over here, so my folks and I stick out like sore thumbs during the Our Father ( my dad really hates the hand-holding).
Very interesting piece about Sigur Ros--thanks. I may say something more about it tomorrow--too late now.
I don't know what I'd do in that situation--being the only or one of the few holdouts for the hand-holding. I suppose I'd go along for the sake of the "weaker brethren." (Alas, I'm not one of those who can give chapter and verse for a scripture reference.)
We didn't particularly enjoy hearing it ourselves.
AMDG,
I have never minded the hand holding in more than a quarter century a Catholic. I just loathe the ambiance and culture in the church I go to so much that I don't want to shake hands with any of these people.
+JMJ+
I don't hold anyone's hands during the Our Father. Since I usually go to Mass alone and strangers aren't keen to make contact with another stranger, I often get a free pass.
The only time it was ever a big deal was when I was still teaching in a Catholic school and was the only one in a congregation of hundreds who wasn't doing it. Sometimes I'd be at the end of a row of a seats, next to the aisle, and because I refused to take my seatmate's hand, she'd pass in front of me, taking several others in the chain with her, to "complete the circuit" with the girl at the other end of the aisle. Ridiculous, really.
I'm confused, Francesca. I thought you were now in a parish you liked.
to "complete the circuit"
Waaaah! So true.
No.
(Francesca's parish) Sorry to hear that. But what was that about you going rad-trad? I was thinking you had found a parish of that stripe that you were ok with it. Or was it just a wishful reaction induced by where you are? (If the comments were more easily searchable I would try to go back and re-read what you said instead of asking.)
No I'm a rad trad manque. I would be go to the EF if the EF existed here. A bunch of monks on one of the Islands who had been in schism have come back since Summum Pontificorum. At least, they think they have - the Bp will make them spend a long time dotting the is and crossing the ts. He went and spent a week-end with them. He wrote about it in our Diocesan magazine. He said, more in sorrow than in anger that they have not kept up with changes since the Vatican Council: 'the atmosphere of the monastery reminded me of my seminary days at Scotus College, in the 1950s'. The week he published that observation, the Scottish Bps announced they are closing Scotus - it has just nine seminarians in it. It is unlikely he sees any irony in this juxtaposition. At his Mass celebrating 50 years in the priesthood a couple of months ag, he mentioned these monks returning and described them as a 'troubled community'. I don't know what he thinks his diocese is.
Sigh. So many stories like that around. I've been lucky in my time in the Church in not being in a diocese that was ever quite that lost in space.
It's awful to feel like you're in some kind of mental combat at Mass.
I don't feel any mental combat. I am totally zoned out. I go to the 8 am Sunday one because it is the quickest to get over with. At Easter, having given up the net and having just gone to the 8 am Sunday mass, it was a real surprise to go on the net and find everyone had just been through Holy Week. I should say, it is a matter of litigancy as well as liturgy.
"litigancy"?
not in a combox.
(My Morning) This morning I awoke from a rather disturbing dream into the midst of a raging thunderstorm. I had been dreaming that I was sitting next to Vincent Price on a couch and he was showing me the skin that had been taken from the faces of some famous people (don’t remember who), and touching these mask-like relics to my cheek. I’m sure the noise from the thunderstorm was intruding into the dream, also.
Then I realized that it was pitch dark, which it never is because I always leave on a light so that I will not play the part of a pinball, bouncing from couch to wall to chair to doorframe on my way to the bathroom. I got up, wondering why Bill had turned the light out and then realized that there was no electricity, which also means no water and NO COFFEE! So, I went back to sleep until first light, at which time I blundered around, throwing on the first garment that did not need to ironed (althouh I’m afraid it has a remnant of Taco Bell on it somewhere or other), grateful for the fact that there was not enough light around any of the mirrors to allow me to see what I looked like, and trying not to think about the fact that my hair was probably sticking out in fifteen different directions and I had the breath of seven camels. Then I scrambled around until I found the dregs of a glass of water so I could take my bp medicine and trudged to the car through a swamp. After moving the branches that had fallen behind the car, I got on my way.
Of course, I had to go the long way around because the main road was almost certainly flooded (no way to find out—the phones weren’t working). But still I was early enough to beat most of the traffic and did fine until I got to my exit, where I suddenly realized that the exiting cars were backed up about twenty deep and one of them was right in front of me and that I was going to run into the back of it really hard. But I didn’t and I swear I don’t know how I avoided it. The car didn’t even skid on the wet pavement. So, I’m thanking the Lord for that—and St. Michael, to whom I pray every time I get in a car.
And now, having been comforted by an expensive cup of coffee and a chocolate-covered coffee bean, I am sitting in my office with the door shut because I still have bad hair and a spot on my dress and haven’t brushed my teeth, but I think I have a toothbrush in here somewhere if I can only find it and if not, I have a bunch of Breathsavers in my purse.
AMDG,
My sympathy.
That dream is really creepy, all the more so because yesterday I saw two different stories (illustrated) about people with horrible facial disfigurements.
Thanks be to St. Michael.
In spite of all your trials, though, I sort of covet the cup of expensive coffee and the chocolate-covered coffee bean. I wouldn't have to go far to get some of my own but like (I gather) you, I don't indulge in those unless I've had to leave home without coffee.
I heard on the radio yesterday about a woman who had a face transplant and had been thinking about the implications of that. And then, I'd had a discussion about Edward Scissorhands, so voila!
And then I forgot to say that I wore tennis shoes to work because I had to trudge through the mud and when I got to my office and pulled my other shoes out to put them on, there was a big spider in one of them
AMDG,
You discovered this by visual inspection or by touch? The former, I hope.
If I were logged in to gmail right now, my current status would say "laughing at the latest Icons & Curiosities entry":
http://www.firstthings.com/icons...iosities/?
p=790
You have a status on gmail?
I have been laughing at that all day and sending people that link.
AMDG,
OH, and the spider kind of jumped out at me when I pulled the shoes from the bag, but it didn't touch me. And then it turned over on it's back adn determined to die, I suppose. I kept trying to turn it over so I could see if it was a brown recluse, but it wouldn't let me. And then I practiced a bit of arachnaeuthanasia.
AMDG,
OK, I changed from html to standard on gmail and I still don't see a current status. What are you talking about?
AMDG,
Click on the little plus sign next to your name, in the left sidebar below the list of folders.
Well, I hate to be obtuse. I see that that is a chat function, but I don't see anything about current status.
I didn't know you played chess.
AMDG,
Never mind. I figured it out.
AMDG,
"I didn't know you played chess."
Only when it's a matter of life and death. And then of course I lose.
I knew you had a death wish.
AMDG,
No, a life wish.
Same difference.
AMDG,
Right. "Properly understood," as they say.
Boy, Janet, what a dream. Yeek. And what a morning to wash it down with. Thanks be to God and Saint Michael for your non-collision at the exit.
I'm sure that Joel would want me to make it known that the name "Mr. Spooky" was his invention. That picture still cracks me up. It really cracks Ben up, too. We'd just been talking about the Trinity the other day, so when he saw the Lego version, he said, "THAT's the Holy Ghost??" and fell on the floor laughing. Of course, now I have to stop him and Rachel from chanting, "Father, Son, and Mr. Spooky," over and over. If they do it at church, I will die.
It's the expression on the Father's (Dumbledore's) face that I find particularly charming.
AMDG,
I know that Sally has been following a conversation at Mere Comments about angels during which Kamilla talked about avoiding accidents by some seemingly miraculous intervention. I had been thinking about that conversation earlier yesterday morning (not at the time of the unwreck) and a couple of others that have happened to me.
AMDG,
I saw that conversation and started to add something to it but didn't want to take the time. We had a strange incident once when our car broke down on the interstate in Virginia and a fellow stopped and got it running again for us, then left us a business card that had no full name and no address and--I can't remember for sure--either no phone number or a non-functioning one.
As far as I can tell, I drove through a truck once that I was about to hit broadside. I had the kids in the car and we were looking at Christmas lights. I ran a light. I really don't know what happened. On minute I was looking at the door of the truck and the next minute I was on the other side. Thank goodness I was down the road from a friend's house because I was shaking so hard I could barely drive.
AMDG,
What can you say except "hmmm..."? I'm glad these accidents didn't happen, anyway, whatever the agency. Maybe I should start using that prayer.
My near-misses, accident-wise, seem merely fortuitous. But where does fortuitous leave off and providential begin? Like the time a few weeks ago when I didn't realize at first that the new noise added to the music I was listening to (it was pretty noisy music) actually came from the fire engine approaching from a side street the intersection I also was approaching. I did in the end see it, but just barely in time.
Here's a link to that MC thread. I think Sally's story is about the most striking I've heard in this vein.
http://merecomments.typepad.com/...-of-
angels.html
"But where does fortuitous leave off and providential begin?"
Well, there's the question, but I'm still going to pray.
AMDG,
Always the best policy. I should start. Absent-minded as I am, and as much as I drive, I need all the protection I can get.
Not to mean the rain and the camera.
AMDG,
Ugh. Not to MENTION the rain and the camera.
Actually I'm probably safer in that circumstance. It means my mind is in the car, at least, which is very often not the case.
OK, so when the electricity was out yesterday, I was surprised because usually when this happens, there is enough water in the pipes to get a couple of glasses of water or wash your hands a couple of times, but yesterday, there was none. It worried me at the time, but since we had no problems when we got home yesterday, I forgot about it.
Except that now we have electricity, but no water.
AMDG,
I'm trying and failing to think of how a thunderstorm could cut off your water supply. Unless...you do live out in the country--do you have a well, which generally means a pump, which is generally electrical, and therefore very vulnerable to lightning? I guess that's what the "usually when this happens" implies?
Well, my knight in shining armor came home and fixed the problem.
It's not lightning--it's just that whenever the electricity goes out, of course, the pump doesn't work. But there should have still been water in the pipes, which made me think we had two problems instead of one. (You may remember that when we had the deer in the pool, that turned out to be two problems instead of one.) So know I will now explain what the second problem was. The conspiracy theory part comes first. For the past couple of weeks, Bill has been assiduously attempting to wipe out our massive ant population, both outside and, now unfortunately, inside. So the fire ants and the little black ants, forgetting their differences for the moment, developed a fiendish plot to get him back. They built a nest inside the pressure gauge in the wellhead and foiled the works. This is an old trick, however, and Bill took his trusty can of ant spray out to the wellhead and destroyed them, knocked some of their trash out of the gauge, and Hurrah! Water!
AMDG,
Well, and a little glory to Bill, too.
Hooray for Bill vs. the ants! You can celebrate by putting Them at the top of your Netflix q.
Score another one for Bill "Better Living Through Chemistry" Cupo.
I missed Brahms' birthday yesterday, but Pentimento didn't:
http://pentiment.blogspot.com/
20...irthday_07.html
That's probably why he was crying when he came over to sing me my lullaby last night.
AMDG,
Yes, he's very sensitive. I feel just awful about it.
A 6,325 line Perl script is a monstrous sight.
Horrors!
I'm glad somebody came along that knows what that means.
AMDG,
The only perl script I really enjoy reading is this one (only 1212 lines).
Pretty slick.
Pop dance music here in the office, and it's only 10 am.
The balcony ledge is calling me.
Quick, anti, click!
It's not letting me click!!!
It's a sign. Well, it's been nice to know y'all.
Wait! Wait! Does this work?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z...h?
v=zMJyNnnR1TE
Ah, yes!! Thanks you, Sir! My date with the ledge is postponed.
Came none too soon, too--the guys are wailing out love songs already. Sheesh.
That's a little scary.
AMDG,
Always happy to assist a lady in distress.
F Y'all's I: I'm going to be offline tomorrow morning, and possibly most of the day. Just letting you know in case you wonder why I'm not responding to something brilliant you've said.
That's a little scary.
Frightful, actually.
Always happy to assist a lady in distress.
Dunno about the lady part, but in distress is completely apt. And F Y'all's I may be my new fave word. But "offline"? What's that mean?
Well, I'm going to be taking exams and studying all day, so that will work out fine.
AMDG,
Exams!! Ack!!! All the best to you. Will be praying!!!
This is almost certainly the funniest thing I'll read today:
http://fineoldfamly.blogspot.com...fast-
table.html
OK, I just want to take me exam and go home. Can I, huh? Please?
Which exam is it?
English. I'm sure it will easy. I just want to be finished and I'm a bit nervous about my paper which was inadvertantly 300 words too long. Who could have imagined that I would be so garrulous?
AMDG,
Yeah, weird.
It's great that there's someone able to keep up with these cultural things:
http://drboli.wordpress.com/2009...5/03/program-2/
That's great. "All Four Symphonies at Once"....
Well, that's that.
AMDG,
You mean all of them, or just the one? And how'd you do?
All. I did well. And she didn't hold my extra 300 words against me. Sunday night when we were discussing Descent into Hell at CSL, I realized that it was, in a way, like my paper. Because the paper was about the 7 Deadly Sins in The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus and "The Fairie Queene," and my thesis was that the protagonists are men on different paths who meet, in a sense, at the 7DS, make different choices and head off in different directions--one to Holiness and one to Hell. And when you think about it, you see the same thing going on in DiH with Pauline and Wentworth.
AMDG,
Many congratulations. Must be a huge relief for it to be over.
I had hoped to dig up my old review of DIH this evening and post it, but I've pretty much run out of evening. I haven't gotten far enough in the book to say much about it now. Although I do notice that it seems to be more frequently obscure--I mean at the sentence level--than All Hallows' Eve.
I did well. And she didn't hold my extra 300 words against me.
Yay!! Congrats!!
Oh, and I meant to mention earlier--a new picture, I see!
Aha! I knew when I saw Krychek kill you last week, that you weren't really dead. You never are.
AMDG,
I now have in my possession Flannery, a Life of Flannery O'Connor, although at the last minute I was tempted by a novel about Thomas More and his daughter that looked like it had pretty reliable biographical material in it. So, now we will see.
AMDG,
(Mulberries for Breakfast) Well, I guess y'all are wondering why I'm typing with purple fingers.
It is really beautiful around our house at the moment (overgrown as it is after two months of almost constant rain) but, sadly, since I started working and especially since I started school, I NEVER go outside. So, this morning I decided that now that it is light in the mornings, I would go out for morning prayer. Afterwards, I walked around for a bit and found lots of ripe mulberries on our huge tree. Year before last, there was a freeze while the tree was blossoming, so there weren't even any leaves on the tree, much less fruit. And last year, I just never got around to walking down there. So, it was especially nice to find the berries there this morning. We never do anything with them (as in cooking, storing the extras), we just walk down to the tree and eat them until we're purple. Mulberry trees are very generous. Their branches swoop down to meet you and when the fruit it ripe, it drops into your hand (or onto the ground if you are not quick enough) as soon as you touch it. There's a fox that comes in the morning to eat the berries off the ground. Everybody has seen it but me. Maybe when I go out to pray, I'll arrange my chair in such a way that I can see him if he comes along.
AMDG,
What do mulberries taste like? I mean, compared to other berries? Blackberries? Blueberries?
Mulberries are a little like blackberries, and a little like raspberries, but juicier and more flavoursome than either. There's a mulberry tree near the entrance to the Faculty of Letters in Leuven, where I was working till last September - I thing that's the thing I'll miss most about not working there any more.
I *think*, that is to say. But I'm amazed at Janet finding ripe mulberries in May - round here they ripen August/September, and spoil quickly, making them an anticipated and short-lived pleasure.
I would say that they are like little blackberries.
AMDG,
(Raise the Red Lantern) I've had this DVD sitting around the house for about month now and today I finally watched it. I think I can safely say that I will never be a Chinese concubine.
AMDG,
Smart decision. That was a hard movie to watch, once it became clear where things were going.
I really like Zhang Yimou as a director, and RTRL is a very good film, but yes, it's a tough watch. Another one of his that I felt that way about is 'Shanghai Triad,' which is a Chinese gangster film.
On the other hand, I'm a big fan of The Road Home, Riding Alone, Hero, and House of Flying Daggers.
Yes, I liked all of those very much, but this was the most joyless, hopeless, loveless, humourless movie I have ever seen. And it wasn't nearly as beautiful as his other movies. Except for the red, it was colorless. I know this was done on purpose, but it was very difficult. The Curse of the Golden Flower was somewhat similar in theme, but it was gorgeous.
AMDG,
This is making me want to see Hero again, and maybe also House of F.D. Generally I don't have much interest in owning movies, because the ones I'd like to be see more than once or twice are pretty rare. (e.g.--I asked for a boxed set of four Bergmans last Christmas). But I wouldn't mind being able to watch Hero any time I wanted to.
I like the idea of having a DVD collection. People tick me off for not renting, but it didn't work for me. I tried it twice, once with lovefilm & once with amazon. The minute I got the DVD in the post, I didn't want to watch it anymore. It just sat. Eventually, amazon kicked me off their books. It didn't help that one just gave a list of a top 20 and any of them might come at any time. One got the Hollywood comedy when one was feeling like Bergman, and vice versa. I got Spiderman II before Spiderman I. In the days of video, my father built up a huge library, from taping late night movies in NYC. I'd like to have a a DVD library big enough so that I could just pull some old 1950s movie from the shelf on a rainy Sunday.
Right now, we are into retro. My mother doesn't seem to take to the modern things things I like. So I got 'Sweet Smell of Success' for us, and that was a hit - she knew and loved it from of old. We're enjoying Kenneth Clark's 'Civilization'. I got Generation Kill (by David Simon, who did The Wire), but she was bored 10 minutes into the 1st episode.
I might try her on Zang Yimou, but I don't have high hopes. I've lent 'Riding Alone' to a lot of friends, and they all like it. That's the only one I've seen so far.
"The minute I got the DVD in the post, I didn't want to watch it anymore."
That's so funny. Ah, human nature.
Not exactly the same syndrome, but maybe a cousin: a couple of weeks ago I was reading an article in The Atlantic about an odd phenomenon of consumer behavior: if you give people a discount coupon or gift certificate with a short life span, they're significantly more likely to use it than if you offer them the same thing with a longer life span. Seems counter-intuitive--you'd think the more opportunity to use it, the more likely to use it. But not so. If they have a long time, they put it off, and then never get around to it.
So: for several years Music from the Hearts of Space has been making their weekly program available for free on Sundays, and I've been religiously (heh) recording it. Some weeks ago they put out a plea for people to sign up and pay a small fee for which one can listen to the weekly program anytime during the week. So I thought, ok, I'll stop freeloading. And I stopped recording it on Sunday, because I could record it anytime. Result: I've missed two of the last five shows.
Not to say that we don't, with Netflix, suffer from the syndrome of not wanting to watch the movie that actually arrived, and having it sit around for a while, but the problem hasn't been too bad, mainly because we're on the three-at-a-time plan, so there's usually a choice.
That's why I've had RTRL for so long. I don't mind and Netflix doesn't mind, but I'm afraid it makes Bill unhappy. The only reason I finally watched it was to make him happy. And for some reason, I just couldn't make myself send it back unwatched.
AMDG,
Francesca, I can't remember whether it was while you were out for Lent that I mentioned this. In case you were, I'll repeat, because I remember you saying you thought The Wire was great. So do I. We (wife and I) watched one episode and weren't sure we wanted to go on, because of the heavy profanity, generally crude language, and violence. But it was an interesting story, so we decided to watch another, and were hooked. We've finished the first two seasons, took a break, and are about to start season 3 (so don't tell me anything that happens after 2!!).
Every time I tell somebody about it I say "this is half recommendation and half warning," because of the above-mentioned, as well as the occasional unnecessary sex scene. But I can't think of anything else made for American tv that compares to it for depth of character and narrative. It's been compared, justly, to Dickens in that respect.
"And for some reason, I just couldn't make myself send it back unwatched."
I have the same problem. I sent back a 2-disk concert video without watching the 2nd disk, because Karen didn't want to watch either one of them and it was taking too long for me to get around to it, and it 'bout killed me.
I ended up sending them back unwatched. I don't like being called a contrarian, but maybe it is true. I don't like having things imposed on me, even when I selected them!
I didn't know if you'd like the Wire. I thought I had a much higher gratuitous violence, bad language and sex threshold than you, since I liked the Sopranos and you didn't. I am really glad you did like it. I agree about the depth of characterization - I've never seen anything like that on TV before. I started in September and was done by November.
I must have been out for Lent when you said you were watching the Wire.
An odd thing is that I doubt if I - or many of us - would agree with David Simon's politics, and usually, that will count in enjoying a director's movies. He seems to believe that the illegality of drugs is part of the problem, and I'm rather agnostic on that (not vigorously pro-legalization, nor anti - so far as I can see, illegalization hasn't worked, but in some places, eg Holland, neither has legalization). I discussed this with a more socially liberal colleague (to whom I lent each boxed set as I finished them), and we both agreed it's a conundrum, especially with Series III.
I didn't mean you were a contrarian in any deliberate way--just that that's the way things tend to go. Really not so much human nature as the general perverseness of things. One wanted the Bergman at one time and will want it again, but...not right now.
Although I didn't like the language etc. in The Sopranos, those things weren't my fundamental problem, which was rather that I just didn't like being around those people. It seemed like a drama with all villains, although I know there was plenty of light and dark within the characters.
Whereas I quickly got very involved with the characters in The Wire, even the mostly bad ones. I don't think I've ever come as close--certainly no closer--to believing, in unguarded moments, that characters in a film or tv show actually exist, and really caring about what happens to them. I sure hope Bubbles makes it--BUT DON'T TELL ME!
I thought the main plot line of season 2 was a classical piece of tragedy, in the full technical sense.
Ya'll are going to make me do this, aren't you?
AMDG,
I don't necessarily want you to--I'll feel like I've lured you into something unsavory.
Francesca, my last comment was cross-posted with yours. From a few things I've read, I expect you're right Simon's politics, but this is an example of the way good art transcends politics. You feel like you're just seeing the way things are, with nothing forced into position for sermonizing. There are a few things here and there that you might think are a bit manipulative--like the fact that one of the most likable of the cops is a black lesbian. But even there, and even from the politically-correct p.o.v, she's a far-from-simple and far-from-perfect character.
I don't know about the legalization business, either. I actually lean that way, because prohibition seems a failure from almost every point of view, but I don't think there is a good solution.
No, I didn't mean up above you talking about humans being contrarian. My opinions in theology are not very fashionable, and often I'm told I'm just a contrarian. I find that annoying for obvious reasons - it reduces everything to temperament.
In selling/buying, humans are evidently contrarian. My family had a shop. If one underpriced something, it would not sell. One could shift a non-selling item by raising the price.
I agree about the second series being a tragedy. I was also deeply taken with Angelo's fate. Bubbles ... I don't know anyone who watched the movie who wasn't rooting for him from beginning to end. The series is operating at a high level of moral seriousness. Perhaps if you ever go back to doing long posts, you might discuss The Wire in relation to your view that modern movies have lost their moral compass. I don't myself know where it fits in relation to the older movies, where the moral compass is shown by the good winning out, and the new kind, where there is none - like the Sopranos, I suppose.
I thought in the first few series of the Sopranos that there was some morality there - I thought it was making some moral points, about how the strongest moral people were dragged down and destroyed by *complicity* with Tony Soprano. But, by the end, everyone is in such deep complicity with him, that nothing matters any more. I saw it as a fable about original sin, to begin with. But by the end, it is merely total depravity.
I never thought I'd watch a TV series and be 100% on board with a black lesbian. I can see my colleagues smile to themselves when I say how I like her. She's just likeable, not a totem. Later in the series, she goes to the bad for a bit, and it is very believable. I remember months back here we were talking about 'realism' in art and film, and I was raving about this black lesbian character, and you sounded a little, ah cautious. But you said you accepted that reality has to be shown as reality.
I agree prohibition hasn't worked. But, like you, I remain agnostic. Over here (in the UK), they have tried eg reclassifying cannibas, lower down the scale, but they had to reclassify it again as a hard drug, because even lesser criminalisation made other things worse.
In general I buy only those DVDs which I know I'm going to rewatch more than once -- in other words, great personal favorites. Every once in awhile I'll see something decent extraordinarily cheap and buy it -- for instance, not too long ago I found a brand new sealed copy of 'Dolores Claiborne' for something like two bucks. That's a good movie, if not a great one, and it's hard to pass up at that price. Even if I only watch it once or twice, I've probably got my $$$'s worth.
Otherwise, I stick to personal faves; my DVD library numbers about 40 movies, I think.
I don't remember that exchange, Francesca--I'll have to see if I can find it. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how often that sort of character is used as a p.c. totem, but I gladly admit I was wrong in this case.
I've done that, too, Rob, and it causes me to end up with a weird collection: there's this film that I deeply love and will watch occasionally till I die. And this other one that just looked interesting and only cost $1.99, which I'll only watch once, but will keep forever because I *might* want to watch it again sometime.
"there's this film that I deeply love and will watch occasionally till I die" Is this a secret?
AMDG,
No, it's not a secret--I didn't have anything specific in mind, that was just meant as an example of what goes through my mind. Although there are some that come to mind, e.g. Winter Light.
No, I don't think the conversation brought up pc totems. It was just generally about realism in art/tv and I mentioned that the Wire has a couple of lesbian sex scenes (or shots, really, not scenes), but I thought it was OK in a quasi documentary type series, because lesbians exist. Maclin said something like, yeah right, if it was a case of social realism, he wouldn't object in principle. But Mac didn't sound at that point like he wanted to rush away and put the Wire into his amazon cart It sounded more like tepidly cautious assent in theory than real assent.
Newman contrasts real assent, which is theoretical, and notional assent, which is concrete.
Now I'm curious--I'll see if I can find that exchange later. (trying desperately to keep nose to grindstone)
Not only does that sound painful, but it's very difficult when the server is having emotional problems, although I suppose that would be your lookout.
AMDG,
Well, yeah, it is really painful. That's why I don't do it more often.
Show no pity to servers (I assume you mean the cybernetic kind).
It was a slight and not interesting exchange. I only remember it because I find it so difficult to convey the quality of a movie. If I say, I'm watching this TV series and it has lesbo sex shots but it is really touching in its humanity, it just doesn't sound convincing.
Well, durn. I found the exchange and wrote a comment, but I must have closed the window without clicking 'publish,' because it never appeared, and now I need to get back to work and have lost the URL. Actually it was sort of interesting--you were in part making the case that The Wire is moral, and I agree completely, having seen some of it now. And I was basically griping about the prevalence of propagandizing in American tv & movies.
Yes, you may have been on your 'movies have lost their moral compass' thing, which I agree with, in part, and I was trying to explain it isn't the whole truth. One often reads, in conservative journals, that documentary is a dangerous medium, because it is not 'truth' and not 'fiction', and when the author/director says something 'untrue', they claim it is 'just fiction', but simultaneously, they use the documentary formula to claim 'truth'. The Wire seems to me an interesting exception. It is very close to documentary. The first series is based on Simon's book of reportage called Homicide. Somehow, the way that the series tries to stay close to the 'truth' of the situations is what it gives it is moral value.
Yes, you alluded to that, though I don't know how it started out--it was a long thread and I just searched for refs to The Wire.
anti will be interested in this, and perhaps others as well: early this morning I dreamed that I discovered that aliens had invaded the earth and taken over the bodies of everybody except, as far as I could tell, me. I discovered this when it came to my attention that everyone else had a body temperature of 72F and thought this was normal, while mine was still 98.
Ok, Francesca, tell us how seriously we should take this:
http://spectator.org/archives/20...inster-
implodes
MPs have to be in London and they have to be in their constituencies. Those whose constituencies are outside London are therefore given a living/housing allowance for a 2nd home in London/their constituency. In addition, of course, they have their salaries - around £65,000 for a 'backbencher', and between £100-150,000 for someone who is in the Cabinet or has ministerial responsibilities. They can also claim expenses - I've got a bit confused about how much per year. There are about 610 (or 630?) MPs.
In the past two weeks, there have been daily revelations in the Daily Telegraph about the abuse of the housing allowance system. There are three kinds of abuse
1) actual (perhaps criminal) fraud. Some for instance have claimed for mortgages on 2nd homes when the mortgage has already been paid off. The instances of actual maybe criminal fraud are probably about 3 (?, out of 610/630). Of course I'm not a lawyer and there may be far more prosecutions than that in the long run. It may depend how angry people are.
2) Really serious abuse of the housing allowance / expenses. For instance, one female Labour MP spent her 20,000 on mending dry rot in her house. That can hardly be called expenditure incurred in the line of duties. Perhaps up to 40 MPs are in this position. It depends what you call really serious abuse. Is it quantity of money or silliness of the claims in question (MPs have claimed for dogfood and for tampax, but small sums). Tory MPs have claimed to get their moats cleaned on expenses. No joke. One really serious abuse which has been exposed is that many MPs 'flip' their designated second home back and forth to earn more from the most expensive one.
3) Trivial abuse of their expenses - dozens of MPs could be indicted for this. For instance, one chap had a pipe under his tennis court mended for 2,000 pounds. The great proportion of what the Telegraph exposed is in this category. They blanket covered everything (they'd paid 600,000 for the receipts), so a lot of trivia is in there.
If the question 'how seriously should we take this' is asking, how corrupt are your MPs, well, decide for yourself with that evidence.
Only a small number have broken the law - about three, perhaps. A larger number, eg those who 'flipped' their houses, have gone agains the 'spirit' of the law, but are within the law. A very large number have abused the system in minor ways - in ways which could be replicated in all professions everywhere - eg, all of us on this blog write in during times when we're being paid to be at work.
If you are asking, 'how serious is this' in terms of how badly people will react, opinions differ. Someone told me at lunch today that it could be like Weimar - people losing confidence in all major institutions. That is possible, but it is equally likely that there will be some prosecutions and a great tightening of the system and what counts as expenses (they are said to have decided now to exclude household furnishings etc, which would exclude most of the trivia above), and it may then blow over. Some of the current lot of MPs may be 'deselected' by the Cabinet or by their constituency parties (Gordon Brown has been threatening this today), but remember that, so far as Labour is concerned, many seeme bound to lose their job at the next election anyhow.
The situatio is sad in two ways. First, in that, ten years ago, I could say 'our parliamentary system is less corrupt than those in Europe', and I might sound a bit snobby, but such national pride could not easily be challenged. Today and henceforth, I cannot say that. Second, they seem bound to draw what I regard as the wrong conclusions. There will be 'more transparency' and they will probably end up paying MPs more ('so that they don't cheat'). In fact, in my view, when MPs had second jobs, as lawyers and bankers etc, they knew the outside world better. Today's lot seem less like 'real people' - they seem to be like 'clones', robots, and it isn't surprising to me that the only way they can add to their income is by cheating on expenses. I think the House of Commons has degenerated with the office of MP becoming a full time profession. It would be wonderful if the response to this crisis was to return to the older way, which gave us MPs who knew life outside Westminster, but as I say, I doubt it.
These are photos of Cardiff nightlife, but it could be Aberdeen (where I live), or anywhere in Britain
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/...ry-
Cardiff.html
Double dittos to the last paragraph of your longer comment, Francesca. I think it's been a pretty long time since our Congress has had many citizen-legislators. It sounds like you've caught up (saturated with irony) with us. Having a permanent political class is surely a sign of decay in a republic.
I suppose by "how seriously" I meant "is it really as apocalyptic as some of the people quoted in this piece say?" i.e., is there going to be a catastrophic loss of confidence in institutions?
There is simply no substitute for self-policing, and that's a key part of what's wrong with us. To take a really small example, someone here was expressing shock at someone in another dept taking a bereavement day--time allowed off for a death in the family--when some distant relative of her husband died, someone she didn't even know and whose funeral she didn't attend. She spent the day packing for an upcoming move, and saw nothing wrong with it. That sort of abuse spreads, and eventually the privilege is taken away or surrounded with a web of onerous rules that make it a huge pain for everybody. It's a little thing, but that attitude spread throughout society is like termites eating on a house.
And re the drunken revelers: I may have mentioned this before, but when one of my children spent a couple of years in Europe, I sort of expected him to have some sort of affinity with the English, more than with some others (he was mainly in France, but there were a lot of English there). But that wasn't the case. He said (as I recall) that most of the English seemed interested only in getting sloppy drunk as often as possible.
I know you dream of flying, Maclin, but I think that's a bit of overkill.
AMDG,
But the brochure from Acme said it would work.
Acme. What's that about anyway? I've been trying to figure it out for over 50 years.
AMDG,
I think it's sort of like the name Fido for dogs. Bet you never met a dog named Fido--I certainly haven't--but that's what he's always called in cartoons. For those of us who grew up with these cartoons, "Acme" ends up meaning not "the very best" but "generic shoddy."
Anyway, this picture was such a good likeness of me that I had to use it.
Well. There are at least half a dozen businesses named Acme-something in the local phone book. Acme Lock Service seems to have a lot of locations. The most striking one: Acme Dating Service. If you call them, do you get a nondescript-looking person who makes a fool of you in public, and later on tries to kill you?
I leave that to you to find out.
AMDG,
(What I've Been Doing Instead of Working This Morning)
http://www.museumofbadart.org/co...ction/
index.php
They aren't all funny, but enough of them are and the commentary is the icing on the cake.
WARNING: Pauline Resting is a pretty graphic nude. Nude Reclining is nothing worry about.
AMDG,
If I'm ever widowed, perhaps I'll give it a try. It will be pathetic: decrepit old man, shabby & shadowy dating service...but you may never find out how it turns out, because after they rob me they'll strap me to a big rocket and launch me into the Grand Canyon.
Beep, beep!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Acm...cme_Corporation
What a treasury of information! thanks.
I can't take time to look at the bad art now, although it certainly sounds intriguing. It reminds me that Clare showed me a blog called something like "cake wrecks" that has some pretty amazing stuff.
Oh yeah. Cake wrecks is good. Sally showed me that one. It makes going to Kroger so much more interesting.
AMDG,
Here's the Cake Wrecks site:
http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/
I'm not even going to start on what I thought "acme" was.
Perhaps that's for the best.
AMDG,
I'm pretty sure it is.
"Head from Hell" is hilarious! And I ove the commentary for Madonna and Child III.
I love Pauline's underarm hair.
Cake Wrecks is a delight!
I have a tiler grouting the new tiles in our kitchen.
Oh, Cake Wrecks makes my whole family cry with laughter.
This isn't REALLY Ron, is it?
AMDG,
Yeah, and now I'm crying with laughter over Bad Art. They need to produce a nice glossy coffee-table-type Unknown monograph.
Oh, and that person masquerading as Ron Thomas? That was me. On my husband's computer. And now he's going to love it when he turns up someplace as SallyT.
Because Janet, when did you ever know Ron to admit to crying with laughter? Although he was just now, looking at Lucy in the Field With Flowers.
Bleah, I've got to quit writing in sentence fragments. We spent the day at a military re-enactment (every war in which America was involved from the French and Indian War to Iraq), and there's still artillery going off in my head. But it was fun.
There was just something about that turn of speech that did not seem Ron-like.
AMDG,
I've often thought I could correctly pick the gender of an anonymous writer with much better-than-random accuracy. I don't know Ron but I thought it was actually Sally (sounds like someone in a children's book, like Really Rosie). Is that because of anything in the writing or just because Sally has often commented here but not Ron?
It's hard for me to tell because I know them both, but it just sounded so much like Sally.
And then, sometimes Francesca shows up as anonymous and I always know it is she.
You just get used the way a certain person writes. It's as distinctive as their voice.
AMDG,
Well, Ron wouldn't say he had cried with laughter, and he probably wouldn't opine about Cake Wrecks, though he does think it's funny. In general, though: Theology, yes. Weighty political issues, yes. Cakes, no.
I on the other hand . . .
That doesn't look right. I don't mean that it is hard for me to tell which one it is, I mean it's hard to tell if it's a feminine/masculine thing and if I would be able to discriminate in that way if I didn't know them. Clear as mud?
AMDG,
Yeah, I thought that was what you meant.
Well, good. It's nice to see you back. Guess how much DiH I've read.
AMDG,
Thanks. It was a hectic but enjoyable weekend--the wedding of one of my nieces. The groom seems to be a great guy, and I know the bride is a great gal. I think they'll be happy, and a good time was had by all.
Well, except the grouch across the road who called the sheriff. I don't know what kind of person would object that strongly to a band blasting out '70s pop-disco at 9:00pm. I mean, if it had been midnight or something...or if the objection was based on musical taste.... I'm a little shocked that today's young people would still be listening to KC & the Sunshine Band.
And amazingly, I did read a not-insignificant amount of DiH. But I'll hold off discussing it till you're finished.
Well, I can't find it now, but I meant to reply last week to Francesca's description of an unfortunate incident where an Irish prelate presented his hand to her so she could kiss his ring, and she didn't know what she was supposed to do and thought palm down was a weird way of shaking hands.
Man, I'm SO glad I've never been in that position. It's a funny story, but beyond that, I have to say I really resist that sort of thing. I guess I still have a lot of the Anglo-Protestant temperament, if not convictions. Or maybe it's just American, or just democratic. But I would really balk at it. Yeah, yeah, it's the office not the man, blah blah blah..but it's not, really, and anyway I don't think it's healthy. Ok, if my resistance is about my pride, it's bad. But on the other hand if their pomp is about their pride, it's even worse, because of their role in the Church. If I had my way bishops would be more identifiable by their poverty than their finery.
That was because you didn't take your computer. I'm buried under a pile of medical/insurance records that I am trying to straighten out after way too long a period of just tossing things onto the dining room table. But before very long I will come up for air and go get the book out of the car where it has been sitting with rain pouring down all around the car, thus discouraging me from retrieving it.
AMDG,
I just don't think it blah, blah.
I don't mean, though, that the guy's attitude was ridiculous. If he wanted people to recognize him as a Cardinal, there's some other protocol that he could have employed to make sure they did--like dressing the part.
AMDG,
Re the prelate and the ring: I think I'd just have performance anxiety, of the sort that I have every time I receive Communion. My husband kneels; I genuflect, because I can't bring myself to kneel, mostly because I'm afraid I'd fall over getting up again (and what I'm going to do when I don't have a small child to propel forward for a blessing, thus providing myself with a handy prop to keep me from falling over when I genuflect, I do not know). And I stress over this every single time.
It occurs to me that if we just had communion rails, none of this would be an issue. There would be *A* protocol, and that would be that. And I think probably the business about addressing prelates is the same way. Surely it was easier when there was one protocol: prelate+ring=kiss the ring. But when you've got one prelate who dresses up and does the ring thing, and another who wears a collar under a polo shirt . . . it's just confusing and awkward and uncomfortable, and you risk making an idiot of yourself in as many ways as there are individuals wearing mitres.
On the same theme, I've met the abbot at Belmont Abbey any number of times, and he's thoroughly charming, but I always sort of avoid him, because I can't really tell what's the right way to address or approach him. People who know him seem to walk right up and hug him, but that doesn't seem the thing for me to do . . . I'd be so much happier, in a way, if we all just called him Your Excellence, or whatever the correct term is, and had done with it. And then he could go ahead and be charming.
Just don't ever let Lance kiss anybody's ring.
Actually, in all my many years of Catholicism, I've only ever kissed one ring and that was when the Diocese of Memphis was formed and we had a reception for the first Bishop.
AMDG,
And I know what you are talking about, Sally. It's the coreography that gets to me. When I was the cantor, I used to worry about every step I took. And I really love altar rails. I have to admit that I'm really impressed by the way that Ron just throws himself down on both knees and then rises without much ado--especially when I know he's had knee surgery. If I tried to do that it would take three grown men to get me back on my feet again.
AMDG,
(Descent into Hell) It's been years since I read this book, but I seem to remember thinking that I understood it. I must have been extremely self-deluding at the time.
AMDG,
I'm glad to hear that, because I was having the same thought. I think I get the overall picture, but there were many passages that I just abandoned, deciding that I was never going to understand them without Williams explaining them for me.
Man, I'm SO glad I've never been in that position. It's a funny story, but beyond that, I have to say I really resist that sort of thing. I guess I still have a lot of the Anglo-Protestant temperament, if not convictions.
Interesting, really. For a number of years, I have really felt the desire to kiss a prelate's ring, with a left-knee genuflection, no less! This is because I feel (notice how it's all about ME and MY Feelings!) it would be like giving Holy Mama Church a hug. I'd really like to do it sometime... BUT we're far more informal here in Oz than you guys in the States and none of us is aristocratic in temperament or culture. Also, I know for certain that our own Archbishop - who is a shy and fairly egalitarian man - dislikes even being addressed as "Your Grace," which is standard form of address to an Archbishop in Oz. Consequently, when the Papal Nuncio was here recently, I thought I might have an opportunity to genuflect and ring kiss, but I chickened out, because:
1. He was standing right next to the Archbishop and I could hardly genuflect to one and shake hands with the other (so I just moved away from them!)
2. I have never done it before and there's that whole performance/choreography angst thing.
3. I really don't like to draw *that* much attention to myself, even if I am a bit of a show-off by nature!
I did think I might attempt it later when I was talking with the Nuncio (minus Archbishop) but we were both drinking cups of tea, so there was no way!
"Crazy For You" is playing again. I don't get it.
Perhaps it's my cross to bear.
So, is it morally upright to take a sick day because the very thought of going to work makes you sick?
Just kidding. There are things which if they are not done today will make tomorrow especially miserable. I'd have to go today even if I had the plague.
AMDG,
Well, you might need to consult the manuals of casuistry on that, Janet, and since you're going anyway it's moot, but should the situation arise in the future, you could try going as far toward work as required to make you actually sick. Then you could go back home in good conscience.
Re the kissing of rings, I never thought about that question of prelate A who insists and prelate B who wants none of it. There is a part of me that says finery and pomp are a good and human thing, but the part that says "a plague on these pretensions" is a good bit stronger. I'd like to see the bishop in a rough gray robe, and our gesture of respect a simple bow.
Just for the sake of argument--
OK, you think, as do I, that the yearning that men have for something beyond this life is evidence that there is something beyond this life. So, is the fact that almost all cultures invest their religious leaders and ceremonies with pomp and finery an indication that this is the correct thing to do?
AMDG,
OK, now I'm going into the closet where I keep stuff. If you don't hear from me in about three days, call my boss and tell him to come dig me out.
AMDG,
Probably the answer is yes (to your 10:21 question, Janet). In an unfallen world, certainly. But we all know what most real bishops are really like, and I can't quite get over the obstacle of separating the man from the office.
I'm not sure about that argument, Janet, but then, I don't really like the 'yearning' thing as an *argument* to God. Most people and cultures have most of the time grossly misrepresented the nature of the ultimate to which our 'yearning' tends; this is why we need revelation according to Thomas in the 1st question of the Summa. Retrospectively, we know that it was God for whom our hearts were restless, but not before he found us and we found him.
Just as most cultures misrepresent that for which our hearts yearn, and what is true in them can only be discerned after much pruning of what is false, so it could be argued that they misrepresent the nature and role of the priesthood in certain ways: we don't know *which* of the aspects of the respect for priesthood they got right or wrong until we know what true priesthood is, in Christ our High Priest.
But, given that Maclin does think the yearning gives evidence, he will need to speak for himself.
I personally have nothing against kissing Bps' rings: I just didn't know I was supposed to. I would say the Bp in question responded not so well to my disrespecting his persona -spontaneously conceiving it as deliberate rather than inadvertent. Both gentlemanlike conduct and true security in his role would have required taking the ill-manners lightly, in my op.
Speaking of which, did I ever speak in turn - I was ranting about Irish RCs being Jansenists one week before every RC was using the 'Jansenism defence' in response to the Ryan report! I began to get doubts about it as I saw it rehashed in the forums. Erin Manning (who I think comments here?) referred to it on CC, and someone said, given that Jansenism is an RC version of Calvinism, why don't you find that in Presbyterian cultures? Being messed up about sexuality is not a commonly noted feature of Presbyterian cultures, so that point was a good one, I thought. I also began to worry that, in effect, people were saying, 'this was really not Catholicism at work, it was the Jansenist heresy'. By any normal sociological or historical criterion, the Irish Christian Brothers etc were Catholics. They may have been Jansenistic Catholics, but that's it.
Maclin and I posted simultaneously.
The Irish thing brought up again the problem of episcopal cover-ups of clerical behaviour, of their complicity in their clergy's misdeeds, and their refusal to listen to lay complaints. I would have to say that I don't see any evidence that the ones who *don't go for the ceremony' are any less convinced that their authority as Bps excuses them from responsibility to the laity than the old school miss my ring guys.
To anyone to whom I owe a response about anything, this is why I have not responded:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3576183640/
As you can see, even the motion of moving my fingers to write this post might begin and avalanche from which I will never be recovered.
AMDG,
Are you implying that your office doesn't always look like this? I'm impressed.
Usually, people can at least sit in the chair. It's hard to make prospective students feel welcome when you have to make them stand in the doorway.
AMDG,
Isn't the chair empty? It's only that stool there that's...
Oh.
Once upon a time, the ability to intimidate students would have been valued in the admissions office. Western civilization continues to decline.
On closer inspection of this photo, I yield the messy office title to you.
Alas, in this day and age we cannot afford to intimidate them until we get their tuition. However, shortly after they are enrolled, I begin a program of intimidation which involves terrorizing all the new students who do not jump through my hoops. You would be surprised what an evil reputation I have.
AMDG
And I bet you are reeling with jealousy over the immense size of my office.
AMDG,
I'd like to see the bishop in a rough gray robe, and our gesture of respect a simple bow.
Chesterton noted that Thomas A'Beckett put the hair shirt next to his skin and the red and gold on the outside where others could benefit from looking at such a pretty thing. And that modern millionaires (well, billionaires, these days) put the drab outwardly for everyone else and the gold next to their heart.
I love bishops in dress-ups! Having said that, not everyone appreciates the difference between treasures and wealth. The Church has a lot of treasures for the benefit of everyone, but is not really as cashed up as most people think. Most dioceses run on a shoe-string budget. But evangelical poverty and corresponding simplicity is attractive in its own way.
Both gentlemanlike conduct and true security in his role would have required taking the ill-manners lightly, in my op.
I agree, Francesca.
this was really not Catholicism at work, it was the Jansenist heresy'. By any normal sociological or historical criterion, the Irish Christian Brothers etc were Catholics. They may have been Jansenistic Catholics, but that's it.
Perhaps it was fallen humanity at work.
Janet, an office is not messy if you can still sit in your own seat. I wish I had an office that big. Luxury! (I can feel a "Four Yorkshiremen" moment coming on).
"Four Yorkshiremen"?
There's an interesting piece by Damien Thompson arguing that it was as Irish as it was Catholic - connecting it to the high tolerance of violence in Irish society (and amongst emigrants from Ireland in the US & Australia/Nz) and to the Irish political culture of 'secrecy':
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/
dam..._it_is_catholic
Yes, Maclin, re: the enormous opulence, which is Janet's office, I give you
"The Four Yorkshiremen"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1...5CC0EC&
index=10
The list of all their official Youtube clips:
http://www.youtube.com/
view_play...DFEA6D52E5CC0EC
Louise, I'm just a tiny bit pleased that I didn't recognize the "Four Yorkshiremen" title, although I think I may have seen the skit at one time--because there's such a thing as having too much Python in the brain, and I think I have enough.
But I have a question: which one is Cleese? The one on the far left?
I gather there is something specific to Yorkshiremen that makes this funnier than if it were just four middle-aged guys.
I would try to one-up Janet but I don't think I could pull it off--I actually have a nice-sized office and conscience would interfere.
"But I have a question: which one is Cleese? The one on the far left?"
Nah, Mac -- Cleese isn't in that skit. L to R they are Palin, Idle, Chapman, & Jones.
Francesca, I'm just now getting to that article you linked to a couple of days ago ("it as much Irish as it is Catholic"). I really can't speak with any knowledge of either Irish culture or Irish Catholicism. But, zooming out a little bit, the Celts seem to be a pretty violent people in general. I was just reading a review of a book about Spartacus, part of whose army was Celtic, and the reviewer quoted a Roman writer saying that the Celts were "mad for war." To have seemed unusually violent in that time they must have been ferocious indeed. In this country, Celtic ancestry is very widespread in the South, and the South has a long history of being rather more combative, in large and small ways, than other parts of the country. The lower-class white culture casually known as redneck is distinguished by a definite mean streak.
I don't mean to suggest something over-simplified, but this could be a factor. I really had never thought about the priest-abusers being predominantly Irish.
Well, my Python knowledge is even sketchier than I thought--I was thinking there were only four of them.
I think I may like this Damien Thompson fellow: "If Barack Obama turned out to be a serial killer, would the US media consider it a story?"
Alias Clio has a long discussion of it on her page. I could change my mind back again, but Irishness is beginning to make more sense to me than Jansenism.
Louise, you said, could it be being human. I don't think that's a sufficient response because there are orphanages and reform schools all over the world, and this hasn't happened to this extent everywhere.
I'm off to the Camino de Santiago tomorrow.
My friend's son is cycling through there with a group of young men.
This is another thing we've always planned to do, and indeed we pray about it all the time, but it's been put on the shelf the last few years. I'll pray for you.
AMDG,
I need to catch up on AC's blog, too. I hope your pilgrimage will be spiritually productive, Francesca.
There are some very nice pictures of Iona's Baptism at All Manner of Thing.
AMDG,
A cry of pain resounds through my house. I'm working from home today because my car is in the shop, and I just saw this story on Google News:
http://www.bizjournals.com/south...01/
daily64.html
It started out a few days ago as a voice crying in the wilderness--a plaintive cry for a cleaner world--a simple request that we not litter. But now, it's beginning to get a bit out of control.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3598475396/
AMDG,
That's so sad, Maclin.
AMDG,
Those two posts that crossed look like a matched set.
AMDG,
Yeah. Thank you for understanding my pain. And your picture is quite disturbing. What if my heart is telling me that there's really nothing wrong with littering?
Or not brushing your teeth, for that matter.
AMDG,
I'm pretty sure my heart won't tell me that.
You care more about your own personal environment than that which we all share?
AMDG,
Regrettably, shamefully, yes. But it's not my fault. We live in a fallen world.
So much for Co-inherence.
Off to learn about student portals.
AMDG,
Nobody wants to co-inhere with someone who doesn't brush his teeth.
Louise, you said, could it be being human. I don't think that's a sufficient response because there are orphanages and reform schools all over the world, and this hasn't happened to this extent everywhere.
Glad to hear it hasn't been happening everywhere.
Nobody wants to co-inhere with someone who doesn't brush his teeth.
So true. Even though I have no idea what "co-inhere" means.
See the comments on the Williams post, Louise--Janet has a link to something about it. Which I haven't read yet either. On my list for today or at least the weekend.
I think this must be a first. Maclin posted something in the morning before I turned on my computer.
AMDG,
Because the blasted dogs woke me up too early. I hate it when I don't get to sleep late on Saturday.
And then I DID sleep late. I usually turn the computer on about 5:30 a.m.--maybe 7 on Saturdays--today it was 8:30.
AMDG,
(Sunday afternoon caller)
We don't get much drop-in company out here, so we were surprised when this fellow showed up on the front porch.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3603956929/
I wish we had had a camera to hand when Bill first noticed him (her? who knows?) because he was lying with his head about a foot and a half from the front door with the rest of him trailing down the steps in a straight line. He was absolutely still with his head raised, staring through the window in the front door. It was rather creepy.
AMDG,
One of the harmless kind, I'm pretty sure. I guess you must have been pretty sure, too, since you took this picture instead of (or before?) killing him/her/it.
Last year we had some birds build a nest in a plant hanging on the front porch, and then a snake more or less took up residence and ate the eggs. Sometimes the snake, which was fairly small, just a foot or two, lay atop the front door sill. One day Clare came out the door and the snake dropped on her. She's relatively unfreaked-out about snakes but that was a little much, even for her.
I can't remember whether it was before or after that that we found what I took to be the same snake in a partly-closed umbrella that I had left on the porch. I took the umbrella, snake and all, to the woods and threw the snake as far as I could.
Oh, I pretty sure it was harmless. Otherwise I wouldn't have sent Bill to take it's picture. But he did get a good shot of its round pupils.
Poor Clare! I'm not sure how I would handle that. I think I've mentioned before about the day that Tessa was picking up sticks in the back yard and discovered one of them moving in her hand. She must have been about 7.
AMDG,
I used to want a pet snake, actually... after the initial shock and figuring out it wasn't poisonous and hadn't bitten me, I was OK. But I'm pretty sure it was more afraid of me than I was of it, because it immediately crawled away (up the wall, which was amazingly cool to watch) and hid in the umbrella. I think that must be the snake equivalent of throwing the covers over one's head.
I had forgotten about the later episode with the flinging, though. Which reminds me, have you ever told the fake cockroach story on here, Dad?
It is fascinating to watch them crawl. My oldest daughter used to work in animal rehab and had much to do with snakes. I'm not really afraid of them. I just don't want them in my house or to touch me when I don't expect it.
Fake cockroach? That's not the one that was in your shoe, was it Maclin?
AMDG,
No, the one in my shoe was real. The story about the fake one is pretty funny but I'm not sure I can do it justice--in a bit of a hurry so I won't try right now.
I'm pretty much the same way about snakes--a sudden encounter at close quarters can be heart-stopping, like once when I was clipping a privet hedge and realized I was looking at a big black snake a couple of feet away. But if I see it first while I'm well away I don't really mind it--or at least I don't freak out.
I killed a water moccasin down at the turnaround on our street/road one night last summer and felt rather guilty about it, because he wasn't really threatening me, just sitting there. I kept thinking about the children in the nearest house.
*ahem* I think I can assist you here. Even though I was only 5 or 6 when this happened, I've heard the story so many times that I think I can tell it pretty competently.
The fake roach story began many moons ago when one of my older brothers acquired a package of rubber cockroaches. They were pretty realistic at a glance, though they did have the distinctive plastic mold lines around the edges. Anyway, the brother spent some little time menacing various family members with them and leaving them in unexpected places to shock the unwary.
However, after a while the shock value wore off and the victims started getting pretty good at spotting a fake roach. At this point my big sister (aged around 8-10 at this point, I think, though I can't recall for certain) had an amazing idea. What if they tied dental floss to one of the roach's legs, thus making it capable of movement when the string was twitched? Dental floss was fine enough, it was felt, that it wouldn't be noticed immediately, giving the impression of a real, live, wriggling roach.
Dad had been spared the brunt of the roach persecution so far, so he was selected as the object of this next attack. The schemers offered to set the table for dinner one night, laying napkins flat over the plates in a show of nicety. Underneath Dad's napkin was, of course, the fake roach with its limited-mobility apparatus. My sister was ready and waiting with dental floss in hand (having insisted that since she came up with the idea she should be the one to execute it).
Then Dad sat down, picked up his napkin, and stared, frozen in horror. Apparently he remembers thinking that it looked a little plastic. However, just then it began to MOVE! Operating on layers of deeply ingrained raw instinct, he gasped, jumped up, swiped at the roach, and sent the plate with its passenger flying off the table to break against the far wall with an extremely satisfying crash.
At this point the mist of adrenaline began to recede and he became aware of thunderous roars of laughter emanating from his children, the scheme having succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams.
That's great! And you did a great job of telling it Clare.
AMDG,
Yes, well told. [grumble]
I do remember quite vividly the near-instantaneous cognitive sequence, which in words went like this:
1) there's a roach on my plate
2) RED ALERT
2) oh wait, I see by the translucent fringe on many of the body parts that this is one of those fake roaches--ha, I am not fooled
3) oh wait, it just moved, therefore it is not a fake cockroach but a real one
4) RED ALERT!!!!!
I also remember the avid attention with which Ellen was looking at me as I sat down, which should have made me suspicious.
I suppose it's only funny because the plate didn't collide with someone's head.
AMDG,
I don't usually care for hydrangeas, but these seemed pretty amazing.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3607692107/
AMDG,
Humph. There are a bunch of hydrangea pics on my camera that were going to end up here, but now I don't know if I should....actually our (Karen's) hydrangea's look very much like that--they've benefited from the removal of trees next door.
"I suppose it's only funny because the plate didn't collide with someone's head."
Yes, but it's so very funny now. Or maybe I just think it's funny now because of its status as family legend.
I can't remember now if Mom was in on The Plan. But if she was, then we would had the universally recognized safety rating of "Mom said it was OK!", which means that any accidents resulting thereof were completely unforseeable by a finite human mind.
My daughter took this picture on her cellphone. I suppose it's naive of me to still be amazed that you can do this, but I'm amazed.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3608734553/
AMDG,
Oh, it wouldn't have been that big a deal if the plate had hit somebody--I just swept it off the table, I didn't throw it--I mean, that would have meant picking it up, with a live roach on it--it was just quicker to get it away from me rather than me from it.
Mom was definitely in on the plan, if my memory is at all reliable.
Wow, I thought cell phone pictures were, like, really crappy.
You know what else is amazing is the movies you can take with a digital camera. Just a couple of weeks ago I finally installed QuickTime so I could see a couple of movies I'd taken with my camera, and they're not bad--I mean, they're very clear, and not jerky.
But the library was open anyway.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3623991370/
AMDG,
Librarians are a tough bunch. Kind of crude and violent, but you have to respect their courage.
(Corpus Christi) Today, our priest gave a really nice homily on the Eucharist. I mean, it wasn't anything spectacular or numnious, it was just a really solid homily and you could tell from the things he said how important the Eucharist was to him. I don't know. It just made me happy.
Then, when I got home, I was looking for a quote in a book that I bought at a library sale and had never opened before and there was this old holy card in the book. The text reads, "Corpus Christi animam tuam in vitam aeternam." "May the Body of Christ guard your soul into eternal life."
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3627346286/
I thought it was a kind of neat coincidence.
AMDG,
That's an unusually attractive holy card.
It was a nice little surprise, although it might mean I'm about to die.
AMDG,
If it is an omen, I hope mine would be just as encouraging.
(Corpus Christi) Today, our priest gave a really nice homily on the Eucharist. I mean, it wasn't anything spectacular or numnious, it was just a really solid homily and you could tell from the things he said how important the Eucharist was to him. I don't know. It just made me happy.
Ditto, Janet. But in our case our PP started off by saying that sometimes he receives compliments about the way he says Mass, even from people (ie orthodox Catholic) who disagree with him. I was one such person, last Thursday and today I found out that the mother of one of our friends last week also said, more or less, "I don't agree with you, but you do say Mass reverently." I'm wondering what was in the water last week!
(Power and Serenity) In our discussion of Descent into Hell, I've mentioned Thomas Howard's book, The Novels of Charles Williams, and I came across this passage in the chapter about DiH:
...[W]e may say that Williams has, in fact, managed to arrange an extremely complicated set of elements into a pattern in which we may see that simultaneous power and serenity that strikes us about all truly successful patterns, that is to say, about all good art. When you see the finished product--a da Vinci Virgin, say, or a Brandenburg Concerto, or the Parthenon, or Oedipus--you are quite overwhelmed with the sense of things having come to a point of absolute repose. Each line and color, each arpeggio and interval, each column and lintel, each speech and gesture, appears in its own highest perfection precisely because of the relationship in which the artist has placed it with the other elements of the thing. And yet this very repose, this very perfection of serenity, that all good art exhibits, is full of energy and vitality.
So, I was wondering what you all thought about this--not as it relates to DiH, in particular--but in a wider sense. And where, in particular, have you seen this in evidence, or where have you seen it lacking.
AMDG,
The facade of Notre Dame de Paris: perfectly proportioned on the large scale, peaceful and glorious at once, and bursting with life in its details.
If I pretty much agree with Howard, but yet really like a lot of art which doesn't have that quality, does that mean I'm a bad person?
No, it means you have bad taste. Just kidding. But give us an example, please.
AMDG
I haven't really given this much thought myself, except for what I wrote before. I'm going to sit down and think about it tonight.
AMDG,
Well...what immediately came into my head was the music of people like Mahler and Sibelius--various late 19th/early 20th century composers. I've been listening to Bach's Goldberg Variations lately, and Howard's description fits it, but not much of anything by Mahler. But I love Mahler, Sibelius, et.al. You could argue that everything fits in their music, but the core of Howard's description is that inner repose, which their music does not have.
You know, Louise is hilarious sometimes. I had forgotten this post from a couple of weeks ago:
http://pcv-louise.blogspot.com/2...-this-
news.html
I agree with Maclin about the music.
Well, I'm always forgetting to check your homepage, but I'm glad I saw the news today. I would have hated to miss such an important announcement.
AMDG,
Some pictures say it all:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3658233276/
I don't know what that is, but it looks nasty.
Every month or two at work we get an email from the self-appointed Fridge Nazi telling us everything in the fridge is going to be thrown out.
I never found anyone who knew what is was, but it was twice as nasty in person. I was disappointed in the picture. But I did love that they left it where they did.
AMDG,
Remember the suspended walkway over the Grand Canyon that made Maclin uncomfortable? Well, look at this:
http://www.facebook.com/ext/shar...&u=iVy_j&
ref=nf
AMDG
What a horrifying picture.
I'd rather be a dead possum than go on that building.
I'm not even going to look. I suspect it may be the thing I read about at Red Cardigan's, a platform with a glass floor way up on the Sears Tower in Chicago. Just reading RC's post about it gave me the heebie jeebies.
It's not quite as bad as it first appears because it is surrounded by glass walls, but--not for me! Those people are insane.
AMDG
Sometimes naptime can be a great adventure.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3693896463/
I have a hard time getting the lighting right on this computer, so there's a darker on to your right if this one is too light.
AMDG
Awww...
I like the brighter one. You can see that the baby is smiling. The darker one looks sort of ominous, like an ad for one of those Evil Children movies. Probably that's just me.
Yes, I like the brighter one because David looks so absolutely delighted. I wish I had a video of the over-turning of the mattress. That must have been quite a trick for those two little guys.
AMDG
(Awake, My Soul) I have been watching the DVD, and decided that I am going to have to find someplace where I can go sing like this. I've found out that there is a sing near Oxford in October, so I'm going to try to plan to be there.
There is one song on the DVD with the words, "serve with a single heart and eye/and to Thy glory live or die." They sing that phrase over and over again, and it's very powerful. And, it's a very powerful phrase.
That book about the pilgrims, btw, addresses this single-mindedness.
AMDG
Ha--it didn't hit me that they had overturned the mattress. I wonder if they had any particular object in mind or if it was just that sort of "we need to do this" thing that children get in their heads sometimes.
Headline of the day: "Old Lady Finds Fawn, Beats It With A Shovel". It's at CNN if you want to read the story--I don't, because it would probably spoil the headline.
I'm so happy that when my car broke down this morning it was here in town, and in a place where I could easily coast into a parking lot, and within walking distance of home, and most of all that it was not on the I10 bridge or in the Bankhead Tunnel.
I'm thinking that this might be a good night for hush puppies.
AMDG
Yes, but aren't they all?
Actually I know from experience that it's possible to eat this kind of food often enough that it ceases to be at all appetizing. It doesn't have to be all that often, either. Once a week is about the most.
This summer, one of our students sat down in a chair (a metal, folding cafeteria chair) and it collapsed beneath his weight. I don't mean that it folded; I mean that it was crushed. Next day, it happened again. I don't want to go down in seminary lore as the first woman to accomplish this feat, so I very rarely indulge in fried food of any sort--but there comes a time when you must. But you're right about losing a taste for it.
AMDG
Yeah, and it's not just fried food--all that heavy stuff, like bbq pork. It doesn't happen as quickly as with fast food burgers etc., but it definitely happens.
On the other hand, one never tires of healthy stuff like boiled vegetables, because one's bodily instincts detect that this is good for you and cause you to desire it and to experience it as delicious.
Also, I'm going to receive a pre-emptive National Book Award next week, followed by a knighthood--even though I'm not British. Is that cool or what?!?! I can hardly wait!
Hugs,
We have an expensive restaurant on campus where the vice-principles seem to eat every day and the rest of us eat on special occasions. I regard the 'nouvelle' type food as delicious.
For complicated reasons, I have left over expenses which have to be used up by 1 August, so the secretaries told me to go and eat there every day. So I'm eating there to save money. I am sick of their nouvelle type food, after three days of it.
I mean, vice-principals! Though vice-principles has something in it too!
I didn't realize Mac was joking about the vegetables till I got to the knighthood - we had some cabbage, boiled then friend in butter, for dinner which was so good we regret the decision not to use the whole cabbage up.
NB I like the picture - from King of the Hill, isn't it? I watched it when it was on telly here years ago.
Fried
And conversely: I have never owned a barbecue, nor ever wanted one. This summer, with my mother living with me, it's impossible to barbecue, because of her illness. Everywhere I go, every cookery magazine and newspaper recipe I see features barbecue cooking, and I'm desperate for it!
Well, that's not the kind of barbeque we mean. I think you need to come visit one of us so you can eat some barbeque and some gravy.
I see you passed on the unicorn picture.
AMDG
I mean, of course, that Maclin passed on the unicorn picture, not Francesca.
AMDG
I'm not sure exactly what "nouvelle" food is--doesn't "nouvelle" mean "not very much" or something in French?
(that's a joke--I seem to remember reading somewhere that very small portions are involved)
By way of illuminating my remark about vegetables: I basically don't like them. I understand that they're good for me and I'm sorry I don't like them, but they're just sort of fundamentally unappetizing, especially when boiled, which is sort of the default thing to do with them. For me, they don't taste very good and they somehow don't sit well on the stomach.
Try boiling lightly, for just a couple of minutes. You must be over boiling if you lose the taste.
Nouvelle is, to me, kind of 'arranged on the plate'. Small quantities of very good stuff, artfully arranged.
And they make patterns on the plate with the sauce.
AMDG
Exactly.
You think Dale Gribble boils vegetables?
AMDG
I was also tweaking those tiresome health-food types who insist that if you eat the right super-healthy stuff your body won't want sugar, fat, etc.
Dale Gribble doesn't eat anything except meat and starches, preferably fried.
I didn't think I was worthy of the unicorn.
Actually I prefer almost any vegetable raw.
Well, I've never watched King of the Hill myself, but I know lots of men that look just like that and their diet is exactly as you describe. As soon as Bill gets tired of cutting the grass, I'm going to go eat in a restaurant with a bunch of them.
AMDG
Anyway, my point was that it was a rhetorical question.
AMDG
I did think that was something you should be well aware of.
You should try King of the Hill. It's a mixed bag but at it's best it's great--extremely funny and often insightful. Unfortunately sometimes on the crude etc. side. It's set in Texas but much of it rings true for the south at large.
I wonder if you can download it from Netflix. Anyway, hush puppies time.
Have a nice evening everyone!
AMDG
Looks like it's only available on dvd, not online. Hank Hill, the "Hill" of the title, is a great American. Dale is...something else.
Enjoy them hushpuppies.
Don't boil your veg at all, Maclin. Steam them or stir fry them. They are almost appetising that way!
I was also tweaking those tiresome health-food types who insist that if you eat the right super-healthy stuff your body won't want sugar, fat, etc.
Yeah, right! I'm going to go now and drink my 2L of water.
I used to just stir fry or steam, Louise, but my mother can't digest them that way. So right now I'm boiling for about one minute then stir frying. It's fine.
That's interesting, Francesca. I don't cook here: DH or DD(12) do that! Anyway, does the boiling first just make them that bit softer for your Mum, but you still get to enjoy the stir fry?
I must admit, if I go for too many days without veg, I do actually begin to crave them. Even the green ones.
And just because it seems vaguely appropriate while I'm speaking to Francesca, my DH is on a train as I type, from London to Edinburgh, for work meetings.
I assume DH does not mean, as it does here, Designated Hitter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Des...signated_hitter
Steamed seems not that different from boiled to me. Stir fry is not bad, as vegetables go.
Louise, yes, the boiling makes them slightly softer, but you still get the crunch of the stir fry if you do it just for a minute - to take the edge off them, as it were.
Mac, steamed veg are even less 'boiled out' than veg which are very lightly boiled.
Any husband who deserves the term "dear" is frequently relied upon to be the designated hitter in the home, so I guess there's not much difference.
AMDG
Good point, Janet.
(Brain waves) I always wonder when I go to the dentist and they put that heavy apron on top of me to protect my trunk from radiation and then point the x-ray machine at my skull.
AMDG
Maybe they think our brains are less important. I hope not to learn that they put a lead-lined skull cap on some people.
I saw the random-kindness/more-money truck again just now on the way to work. I think the same guy was driving, which makes it more likely that it's actually his truck. I was right behind him at a stop light and really sorry I didn't have my camera.
You should follow him to where he's going and get the story.
AMDG
What Just Happened! I *Saw* What Just Happened. This is the movie Rob G did the music to. I was in 'DVD Drive Through' yesterday and I spotted it. I said to the guy at the desk, I know the guy who did the music to this movie! It was a good movie. Sort of a soft Coen Brothers kind of movie. If it had actually been a Coen Brothers movie, of course someone would have come on and shot the producer (and his dog) in the last shot. I noticed that, when someone wished to insult a movie they said, 'I liked the sound track'. So I won't say that!
I saw the random-kindness/more-money truck again just now on the way to work.
Oh! Yeah, a picture would have been great. But perhaps this means he lives nearby, so hopefully you'll see him again, and...erm, get another shot.
Or perhaps, he could perform some random act of kindness for the guy, or vice-versa.
AMDG,
Yeah, I was thinking vice-versa. He's the one with the sticker anyway.
My guess is that "act of kindness" is not the default response.
I meant to put that movie (What Just Happened?) on my list when Rob was talking about it--now I have.
Oh, I was thinking that maybe if you had a flat tire, he would help you change it.
AMDG
Just make sure that when he does, you don't give him any . . .
I was thinking that somebody with a flat tire, especially someone asking him for help, or even mutely appealing to his conscience, might be exactly what he wants less of.
By the way, I didn't have to change the tire I mentioned the other day. Great chunks of tread were flying off of it, but the core was still intact and holding air, so, since the tire was a total loss anyway, I drove several miles at 20 mph on a very busy road to a tire store and left the car there. That was nice, because changing a tire on this car is sort of miserable, and of course it was pretty hot. Cell phones and spouses who can come pick you up are also nice.
Indeed. And speaking of spouses, today is my spouse's birthday, which both of us forgot until about 9:30 when I had to put a date on something.
AMDG
Happy Birthday to him! Good excuse to go out to eat tonight. Btw how were the hushpuppies?
Sigh. Disappointing, but the catfish was great.
AMDG
I just noticed your new profile image. Nice. Isn't it from that show ... about rednecks. I forget what it's called. Anyway, The Daily Eudemon had some funny jokes about rednecks today.
King of the Hill, and it's very funny, at least if you're from the South. Though it must be intelligible to a lot of other people, too, as it's been pretty popular.
I never really paid attention to King of the Hill, though I think Mike Judge is brilliant. I loved Beavis and Butthead (though I'm embarrassed to admit it) and Office Space was extremely funny (and, as time goes on, oh too true - it was funnier when i didn't have to live it). I suppose I'll have to give King of the Hill a chance one of these days.
To my taste King of the Hill is *way* better than B&B. But then I was always at least as much put off as amused by B&B. And really didn't see that much of it--probably not more than half a dozen episodes. You were right to be embarrassed. I admit, though that B&B could be side-splitting when it wasn't disgusting. KotH is in another league to me. So is Office Space. Anyway, if you like Mike Judge that much, you should at least sample a few episodes. As with any series, the quality is uneven, so one might not be enough for you to judge by.
One thing I forgot to mention about King of the Hill: it has the greatest TV theme song ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u...h?
v=uAvGUIvQblg
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” —C. S. Lewis
For some reason, the inside of the container which hold my nice, healthy cantaloupe smells exactly like a glazed donut, fresh out of the oven. Surely this is a ploy from the depths of hell.
AMDG
So, I'm just getting darn tired of driving home to the lovely sound of tornado sirens.
These people don't usually have a lake in their yard.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...in/photostream/
This was long after the worst was over, but I like the clouds.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...in/photostream/
We had to go the long way around because the road was flooded. This is the road that wasn't flooded.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3773828404/
AMDG
Lovely dark clouds and green grass in that second one.
We had about a tenth of an inch of rain.
That was the back side of the storm. I keep trying to send it to you, but it just won't go.
AMDG
I appreciate the effort, Janet. We did get half an inch of rain a few days ago, and almost two inches late last week--maybe those were your doing.
I just finished praying Morning Prayer and now it is time to put away Volume III of the Liturgy of the Hours, Ordinary Time, Weeks 1-17; and to get out Volume IV, Ordinary Time, Weeks 18-34. I love this. One of the things I love about the Church is this cycle of prayer, not so much going around in endless circles, but winding further and further up the mountain to it's summit.
AMDG
ARGH! "its summit."
If it makes you feel any better I caught myself doing that the other day.
I've never tried the Liturgy of the Hours. I fear I would fall on my face.
Most days I manage to get through one "hour"; occasionally two. About two months ago, I managed to go a whole week saying morning prayer, evening prayer and night prayer. And this is with a simplified, one-volume "Shorter Evening and Morning Prayer". Sigh.
Around 1997, in my three unsuccessful months as a Benedictine oblate, I said an idiot's version of the office, with just one cycle of psalms you go round and round.
I been saying the breviary since 1998, which is 11 years. I met a priest at a conference at BC, and he told me to say 'the office of readings'. He told me to start at Advent. I bought the three books (Janet's four must be slimmer than my fat three), and away I went. I did 'The office of readings', which is 3 psalms, a bit of scripture & usually something from the Fathers, for a couple of years.
I remember when the priest told me to do this, I said (I can't have been very promising material to work with), 'what happens if I miss?' He said gravely, 'you just move on to the next day'. This was amongst the most helpful spiritual advice I've had. I must have been kept back from doing such a thing by the feeling that an axe would fall on my head if I missed, or, I'd just have to give it up completely after the 1st lapse.
My main problem was wandering into the wrong week of the year, or the wrong week of the psalms - it isn't easy to follow. At Christmas, at my mother's in France, I just ran into the ground around New Year, because it seems to come to an end, and I didn't know where to go next. I also have a bit of a problem knowing when to jump to the new book (from blue to brown to red). It is easier now there is universalis.com, but often the times when I get lost, I'm away from a computer.
After a couple of years of that, in 2000, I became a lay Dominican. They say the morning prayer and evening prayer. I tried to keep on with 'the office of readings' too, but it was too much - I was saying 'the office' and 'evening prayer' at 90 miles an hour at 11.30 pm. BTW I do admire these people who say they take it slowly. So I went to just morning & evening.
That lasted until this last Easter, when I left the lay Dominicans. At 1st, I didn't do anything, because it reminded me of being a lay Dominican. Then I realized I could go back to saying 'the office' - the 3 psalms, scripture reading and Patristic passage.
I couldn't tell you what it does for me. It seems to me the best way of having an ordered prayer life. Apart from the blip during Easter/Pentecost, I have very rarely missed for more than half a week since 1998. Before 1998, I sort of prayed when I felt inspired, which is disastrous for anyone beyond the 1st six months of conversion.
For anyone starting, and who is as utterly undisciplined as I was in 1998 (and am), 'the office of readings' is a good way to begin, because you can say it any time of the day. There are probably times the church prefers you to say it, but there's no rule you have to say it at such and such an hour, that I know of. So I could do it in the morning, or at 11.30 at night. Going from nothing (or, 'when I felt inspired) to, say, prayer in the *morning* (before work) every day, or the *evening* every day, wouldn't have worked for me, given my laziness and lack of order.
Could you satisfy my curiosity, Francesca, about being (or not being) a Benedictine oblate? How did that work?
I'd like to second what Francesca said about moving on to the next day. I try to pray the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer. I've had years when I did very well and years when I failed utterly, but it just keeps on going when I fall down and I jump back on when I get up. I'm not sure how long I've been doing this, but I started before Becca was born, so more than 21 years. If I had let my customary "You have to do this perfectly or you can't do it" attitude get in the way, I would never have pulled it off. Must have been grace that I've been able to let myself fail a bit.
And the Office of Reading is the best part for me. Those readings from the Fathers frequently say exactly what I need to hear.
And then, aside from the discipline which it undoubtedly provides, I like to be praying along with everybody else.
AMDG
Hi Paul. There is a Benedictine Abbey a couple of hours north of Aberdeen (where I live), called Pluscarden Abbey. I don't know about any other Abbey, but this one has an Oblate Master and Oblates - as it were, 'lay Benedictines'. I wasn't around long enough to find out much about how it worked. In around late August, I took the lowest level of 'initiation promises' (I think there is a set of higher level ones later on), and went away with a copy of the Rule and the 'Idiot's Office' mentioned above. I was supposed to read the Rule down to a bit where there was a mark each day - it is marked for how far to read, so you get through it in about a month. And say the Idiot's Office. This I did very faithfully until November. I thought I was doing brilliantly. I had run through the Rule about three times, including really boring bits about the cellarer etc, and said the Psalm cycle every day. I was 'on probation' at work, and it was the Michaelmas term - twelve weeks on the trot, getting dark as it does here around 3 pm. An older, alcoholic colleague ended up in a dipso clinic, and I had to do his teaching as well as my own. I was teaching all new courses. I was working my er backside off. Then the Oblate Master sent me a furious letter about why hadn't I revisited the Abbey. It would have been impossible for me to go away during term time. Well, I suppose it might have been possible, but it would have involved a complete personality change. With hindsight, I think the Oblate Master and I entirely overestimated my level of spiritual maturity at that time He was a bit guilty about driving me off for a few years, but we're good friends again now.
I think if you last longer than three months, you get an 'Oblate Letter' and go to meetings and talk about the Fathers and Benedictine spirituality. I didn't get that far.
To be honest, though I thought I was doing very well, reading the Rule three times .... well.
The thing is, most certainly, you have to have a vocation for being a Benedictine Oblate. People would say to me, 'don't you LOVE being in the Abbey?' 'Don't you wish you could be here all the time?' The answer, for me, was No, No. I felt that a Benedictine Oblate was a sort of surrogate Benedictine - ie, for me, not the kind of vocation for someone 'in the world' who likes being 'in the world'.
Since my extensive legal problems with the Dominicans, not a single monk from Pluscarden has said to me anything remotely approaching, 'we told you so'. Not the faintest gleam of Schadenfreud.
If you live in Belgium (?) do you know Marianne Servais, who has started up a Lay Norbertine group in Louvain?
Just to answer your final question quickly, I've met Marianne Servais a couple of times in passing, but one of my brothers is a sort of hanger-on (not a fully paid up member) of the "Norbertus Beweging". He told me a week or so ago that they'd just recently been incorporated as a Norbertine Third Order or something like that.
I love the picture you have on your homepage. In fact, I think it's my favorite of all the pictures you've ever posted.
AMDG
Is that directed toward me or Paul? If me, thanks. I like it a lot, too.
"extensive legal problems with the Dominicans", Francesca? That sounds like a really sad and bad story.
Maclin, That was directed to you. I completely missed Paul and Francesca's exchange, which is, unfortunately something that happens on this thread.
AMDG
I love marshmallows.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.ph...2&
id=1413619572
AMDG
Are those actually mallows? And are they actually in a marsh?
Unrelated: xkcd is rather sad today:
http://xkcd.com/618/
They are indeen mallows in a marsh. I wish I could have gotten a long shot of them because there are tons lining the road that we take to get to Mass. However, there is NO shoulder on the road and much traffic, so I risked my life to get that picture, which Bill probably thought was enough.
If I told you how funny I thought xkcd was, it would probably lower people's opinion of me.
AMDG
Indeen indeed! Phooey!
The question for the day is, "How many user names and passwords must one have before one's brain implodes and one is rendered permanently incapable of coherent thought?"
AMDG
Just make sure you don't write them down. IT people can tell when you do that and we don't like it.
You mean, we remember them when we write them down and don't have to call the IT people and say, "The computer won't let me on and you haven't fixed it yet"? And you don't like that because you get lonely?
AMDG
No, we still don't like those phone calls. But writing them down is Insecure, and we don't like that. And we really don't like it when you make them easy to guess. All your passwords should be things like "q-e3nj.5", and you should remember them without writing them down. Never mind getting any work done.
Darn it, Maclin, that is exactly what all my passwords are. Now everybody can access all my accounts.
AMDG
But they don't know your username(s), which I'm sure is(are) not anything as simple as "jcupo".
No, they are things like gslick and jjoplin.
I've been here since 6:45. I'm getting a little punchy. Not to mention hungry.
AMDG
I just found in my purse a quarter-sized medal that I found on the ground the other day. On one side, it says, "With God, all things are possible." On the other side is picture of a cheerleader, jumping in the air with her legs in the full-split position. Now, perhaps if God found it necessary for me to have to jump in the air while doing the splits, I could pull it off, but nothing short of a miracle would make this possible. I would say that I have never been able to do the splits even on the ground except for an event that occurred several years ago. The phone on the kitchen wall was on about the 4th ring and I was running towards it with a glass of water in my hand. I stubbed my foot on the sill of the door and dropped my glass (it was plastic really) of water, which hit the floor about the same time as my other foot which proceeded to slide forward into a position that would have done a Dallas cheerleader proud. Not only that, but I managed to grab the receiver on the way down. I don't remember who was calling, or if it was important, but whoever it was must have wondered why I was laughing maniacally when I answered the phone.
AMDG
How long were you in the hospital?
Well, that's what's really weird, because I don't even recall being sore.
AMDG
I think I would've been in the hospital.
Don't go to the hospital. It's no fun. They don't let you sleep and they make you keep an IV in your hand until it blows up.
AMDG
I did once, actually. I didn't really think it was so bad, all in all. But then, nothing blew up, and they successfully fixed me.
It's a cummulative effect. The first time it's not so bad, but it gets worse everytime.
AMDG
I am laughing at that story of you doing the splits, Janet (only b/c you weren't hurt though).
Something like that happened to me when I fell feet-first (thankfully) into a 6ft deep ditch. As I descended, my left leg was up near my ear. And though I was only about 16 at the time and obviously very flexible, I had never done the splits before or since.
Janet, I am terribly impressed that you picked up the receiver on the way down and that you were laughing maniacally!
Laughing maniacally is what I do best.
AMDG
I try to laugh maniacally in the Queen's English, but I can't picture her laughing maniacally
AMDG
Chili update: Armour's is not bad at all. Better than Hormel's premium one (the non-premium one is no longer acceptable, at least in non-emergency situations). With the end of Bush's, Armour's may be the best, but I haven't sampled Campbell's recently.
Thanks. I'll be sure to record that in my Canned Chili Diary.
AMDG
Well, yeah, that's why I mentioned it.
That's what I thought.
AMDG
Of course I could have just emailed you, but I figure a lot of other people are interested, too.
Oh sure. I'm thinking about starting a Canned Chili Diary blog.
AMDG
That's a good idea, even though it might mean people won't find mine as interesting anymore, containing as it does a lot of irrelevant posts among the chili updates.
I know. It's the only thing that's holding me back. But I was thinking maybe you could write some guest posts.
AMDG
I know. It's the only thing that's holding me back. That and the fact that I might feel like I was obliged to actually eat some now and then.
AMDG
I try to laugh maniacally in the Queen's English
Now that really is admirable.
I'm even more impressed.
This is kind of neat.
http://olympus.eu/penstory/
AMDG
Will have to watch it later (lunch hour, maybe).
I really, really, really, really hate it when I have to tell a prospective student that he failed an admissions test and won't be able to come to seminary. Thankfully, I don't have to do that often, but I had to do it a few minutes ago. They almost invariably stand there and wait for you to tell them what to do with the rest of their lives. I don't know. I don't know.
AMDG
I would have a *major* problem doing that. I've never had to fire anybody. I'm literally not sure I could do it.
(The most literary spam I've ever received) In my mailbox at work this morning: arm; Till he grew tired, and some man (no! not I, I swear not I, fair lady, as I live!) Thrust at him with a glaive between the knees, And threw him; down he fell, sword undermost; Many fell on him, crying out their cries, Tore his sword from him, tore his helm off, and: ALICE. Yea, slew him: I am much too young to live, Fair God, so let me die! You have done well, Done all your message gently, pray you go, Our knights will make you cheer; moreover, take This bag of franks for your expenses. [_The Squire kneels._ But You do not go; still looking at my face, You kneel! what, squire, do you mock me then? You need not tell me who has set you on, But tell me only, 'tis a made-up tale. You are some love
AMDG
We have a local Mexican chain up here that does a marvelous Turkey & Red Bean Chili. I just had some last night, actually.
I haven't eaten canned chili in ages.
Prayer request: Some good friends of mine, together with their four children, will be received into the Catholic Church this coming Saturday, each receiving one or more sacraments for the first time. It is a very happy occasion, but not without challenges of various kinds. Please pray that God will richly bless this family as they make this courageous step. (I have been asked to be godparent to the four kids, so you might pray for me too, at least a little.)
I'll certainly pray for this family, cnb. What a great thing.
Chili update (thanks for the reminder, Rob): Winn-Dixie's store brand is not very good at all. Definitely not recommended.
The state of my office would fill me with despair were I not unalterably determined NOT to despair.
AMDG
Are you also determined to clean up your office, thereby reducing the temptation to despair?
Oh yeah, there are things hidden in here that must come to the light soon if I expect to keep working here. Now if I could just make people quit coming to my door . . .
AMDG
I had this Spanish quiz tonight and it was very easy. We just had to know the days of the week and the months of the year. I didn't even have to study, because I've picked them up over the years, BUT about five minutes before the quiz, I had an attack of French--lundi, mardi, mercredi. AAAAAAAAA. I couldn't get it out of my head, but then I did. Unfortunately, now my brain thinks that if I'm not writing in English, I should be using Greek letters. I kept having to erase alphas. Who knew this would be so perilous?
AMDG
Oh phooey, the cat has slipped off the page. I love that picture.
AMDG
All things must pass...fortunately there are the archives.
And as for the Spanish-French-Greek confusion, well, that just goes to show that one shouldn't try to learn foreign languages. Stick to the jolly old English way of simply speaking very loudly to those who claim not to understand English.
I'm secretly (well, not secretly anymore) convinced that everyone on earth thinks in English, and probably speaks it at home.
But it's a REQUIRED class.
AMDG
I can sympathize, Janet, with your language difficulties. I think our brains have one place for our first language, and one other place where all the other languages we might try to learn are jumbled together. If anyone speaks non-English to me (in Israel, say, or in Quebec) my instinct is to reply in Italian. "Mi dispiace!" "Prego." "Grazie." "Non parlo italiano." And so on. Italian is a non-English language, right? It ought to work, right? My wife makes fun of me.
(Of course, she speaks every foreign language with a French accent, even though she's a native English speaker. I make fun of her.)
During the summer there is a priest who fills in at our parish who studies in Rome the rest of the year. We have a bilingual Mass, and when he's supposed to be preaching in Spanish, I realize sometimes that he has slipped into Italian.
AMDG
Speak for yourself, silly headline writer:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/...pson/
index.html
But if this causes somebody to listen to RT, that's ok.
Actually, I really don't want that EG discussion to go off into Pullman, we can discuss it here if we must.
AMDG
For my part there's not much to discuss. I just laughed when I read the first couple of paragraphs of that article. How can anyone think, at this point in history, that there's anything unconventional about this project? Silly little fellow.
To jump back a couple of comments, I heard what I thought was a really good piece about Thompson on public radio the other day. I have to admit that I hadn't heard of him, but then, I haven't heard of a lot of people. I enjoyed the music, though.
AMDG
Also, I would just like to go on record as saying I really don't want to go back tomorrow. I'll probably be sorry tomorrow that I didn't work today, but right now I'm not.
Well, it's true RT is not exactly a household word, not that well know outside the world of people who (ahem) probably listen to too much pop music. Much of what he and then-wife Linda recorded in the '70s and I guess up into the early '80s somewhere is really, really fine. I think you would like it, Janet. Also Fairport Convention, of which RT was a key member. And he is less known as a guitarist than he deserves. Personally I never have cared much for his voice, though.
One of the songs they played had Linda singing. I like that one the best.
AMDG
Here's RT solo performing one of the great songs from his days with Linda. It's better with her. IMO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E...h?v=EC-
5vpJNlUk
That was the one.
I don't want to go back, either. And I'm trying to save up my vacation days so that I can take a good long break when we go to Becca's graduation in May.
On one episode of The Office, Pam says something like: Every year I get 10 days of vacation and I try to wait as long as I can to take them. This year I made it to February.
AMDG
Well, that's weird. Here's the NPR piece and that song isn't in there, but I heard it somewhere.
http://www.npr.org/templates/pla...188&
m=111987470
AMDG
I forgot to add, superstitiously: I'm really grateful to have a job. And, objectively, a pretty decent one.
What is this? Besides blurry, I mean.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/255...N02/3900521883/
AMDG
Is there a prize for the right answer?
I don't know, what did you have in mind?
It would have to be a virtual prize. I can't afford to mail anything to Belgium at the moment.
AMDG
The question is, what kind of flower, right? If so, my answer is "I don't know." I mean, the answer is not "a flower," right?
And you thought I was perspicacious!
That is a kudzu flower. I never knew these existed until about two years ago.
And what really surprised me when I got right up close to them to take the picture was that they smell like grape soda.
You don't think that's where grape soda comes from, do you?
AMDG
I wouldn't be at all surprised. I am, however, a little surprised that I haven't encountered this, as I've spent a fair amount of time fighting kudzu. But then in the heat of battle you don't notice decorations.
I'm thinking of adopting "Kudzu-bane" as my nickname in the epic style.
p.s. Kill it.
Good grief, Maclin! If that could be done, don't you think it would have been done?
AMDG
I really just meant that flower, but I guess that doesn't make sense, does it? Yes, you're right, killing the whole thing is impossible.
The flowers don't come out until late August. Well, they really don't come out at all. They hide pretty far in. But all the vines don't have them. Do you think there could be such a horrible thing as male and female kudzu?
AMDG
If there is (are?), then Science needs to figure out a way to get them to quarrel seriously enough to stop reproducing. Then divorce and move to different continents. With deadly climates.
Whoa, I missed all the Richard-and-Linda Thompson conversation. I love them/him. I love her voice, and I quite like his, actually.
Kudzu, on the other hand, fills me with blank despair.
(A missed opportunity) Day before yesterday, I went in the bathroom and there was a rather large black widow suspended between the toilet and the wall. Being barefoot and empty-handed, I had to get my well-shod husband to kill it and then I realized I should have gotten a picture first.
AMDG
It just dawned on me: Kudzu...Cthulhu. There is a definite linguistic connection there. And no doubt a familial one. If kudzu is the spawn of Cthulhu, that would explain a lot.
On the other hand, though, it won't help me sleep. My house is under constant siege by kudzu. If this proves to be my final communication, warn the world.
Shoot. The roots of your kudzu probably reach all the way to my kudzu. I doubt if I would be safe either, or even Sally.
AMDG