Normally, that haiku would describe me perfectly, but in preparation for next Saturday’s wedding I’ve been stepping up my game – or at least planning to. So far, I’ve concentrated on purchasing specialist cleaning supplies on Amazon and rearranging the china while I wait for my packages to arrive. You see, I bought these two little demitasse cups from the same place I bought the Russian cup and saucer and I had to find a good place for them. Here’s a close up.
And here’s what they look like on the shelf in my kitchen.
It took us a while to identify the maker because the stamp on the bottom is in Japanese, but eventually the DH discovered that they were made in the early 1970s by a company called Dai Ichi Taki. You can see more of the pattern here. They are nothing special but I really like them, so they’ll take a place on the shelf until the next time I change the display.
Pretty china aside, have you noticed how crisp and perfect those photos are? No, I have not suddenly steadied the tremor in my hands. I did something even wilder – the DH and I took the plunge and bought a smartphone! It’s your basic black Samsung Galaxy A32. It’s not the newest model but it seems to do everything except fill out your taxes and write your will for you.
We didn’t really have a choice after ATT warned us that they would not continue to support our 3G flip phone. Once the new phone arrived, I spent a good hour Zooming with my youngest son who taught me how to use it. Then I spent another hour with an ATT rep to register it. The latter was quite the ordeal, although the customer service man was patient and nice. All is up and running now and I should be ready to take good photos of the wedding festivities. My goodness, between the car and the phone I’ve had my fill of 21st century technology. I think I’ll go read a book.
I hope your week is going well. We are experiencing heat advisories, but this is nothing new in my neck of the woods. It’s July, after all. I went to the grocery store and experienced, once again, that hot hit of heat when exiting the store. I remember as a child feeling that and also the getting into our heat box of a car (no air-conditioning) and returning to our house, also without air conditioning. Truly every summer of my youth was a long, hot summer. I am grateful for my air conditioned car and home, but sometimes I like to go out to our Florida Room and experience the summer heat of my childhood again and breathe the fresh air.
Yesterday was the 9th wedding anniversary of the boy and daughter #3. They have been a couple since 2009, and as you know, they were engaged at aged three while in preschool together.
Everything has not been all sunshine and roses for the handsome couple and they have truly been through a lot together…
…cancer, preemie twins in the NICU for three months, owning a store during COVID–but they’ve weathered it all admirably. I certainly admire them. They are a fine example of sticking together through thick and thin and smiling along the way.
“In sharp contrast with our culture, the Bible teaches that the essence of marriage is a sacrificial commitment to the good of the other. That means that love is more fundamentally action than emotion. But in talking this way, there is a danger of falling into the opposite error that characterized many ancient and traditional societies. It is possible to see marriage as merely a social transaction, a way of doing your duty to family, tribe and society. Traditional societies made the family the ultimate value in life, and so marriage was a mere transaction that helped your family’s interest. By contrast, contemporary Western societies make the individual’s happiness the ultimate value, and so marriage becomes primarily an experience of romantic fulfillment. But the Bible sees GOD as the supreme good – not the individual or the family – and that gives us a view of marriage that intimately unites feelings AND duty, passion AND promise. That is because at the heart of the Biblical idea of marriage is the covenant.”
Timothy Keller
May God continue to bless you two and your wee family.
And God bless our nephew Foster who got hitched to Goksen in Izmir, Turkey earlier in the month and also my DP’s son Chris whose postponed wedding has been re-scheduled and is in less than two weeks. Mazel Tov to you all and to your parents as well.
And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
Daughter #2 here with a guest post while my sister is traveling. We might make this a semi-regular thing: an occasional Katiebelle check-in, hopefully with some deep thoughts thrown in (or not). Today, I will mostly be reporting tales from our first beach vacation as a family of 3.
Katie was totally unafraid of the chaos of the sea. I am sorry that I don’t know how to upload video of her confidence at the water’s edge, so photos will have to suffice. She was ready to march right into the waves, and we spent a lot of time hunched in the sand, holding her back. The stiff knees were totally worth it for pictures like this:
Is anyone else getting Music Man vibes?
I, on the other hand, felt increasingly aware of the ocean’s creepiness. For the first time, we stayed in a “beachfront” house with a full wall of windows looking out on the ocean. I couldn’t help think of Moby-Dick every day…
Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.
Chapter 58, “Brit“
God keep thee!
OK, it was also really pretty.
In addition to entertaining ourselves with buckets and umbrellas…
…we also managed to dress up and go out to dinner a couple of times. Katie is increasingly more toddler than baby, so sitting at the dinner table is becoming more of a challenge, even with a wine list and tableware to inspect.
We did a lot of picking up this and that off of the floor wherever we went, though as you can imagine, no one seemed to mind. Katie stole the hearts of many a server.
Now we are back home, back at work and daycare, getting back into our routine. The semester starts in a month, which is nuts. We do seem to live for the weekend, but when the weekend means walking practice and park visits, how could we not?
We think a lot about the passing of time and this was a shocker:
Yes, the album was released on May 26, 1967–54 years ago. And WWI was only 50 years before that. Western culture had changed a lot in those 50 years, but think about how much it’s changed in the past 54 years.
As usual, I am trying to escape our crumbling culture by reading something uplifting. Currently I am re-reading Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. This novel has much to say about the passage of time and people living in community.
As I have told it over, the past visible again in the present, the dead living still in their absence, this dream of time seems to come to rest in eternity. My mind, I think, has started to become, it is close to being, the room of love where the absent are present, the dead are alive, time is eternal, and all the creatures prosperous. The room of love is the love that holds us all, and it is not ours. It goes back before we were born. It goes all the way back. It is Heaven’s. Or it is Heaven, and we are in it only by willingness. By whose love, Andy Catlett, do we love this world and ourselves and one another? Do you think we invented it ourselves? I ask with confidence, for I know you know we didn’t.
Frederick Buechner calls it “the Room called Remember.”
The past and the future. Memory and expectation. Remember and hope. Remember and wait. Wait for him whose face we all of us know because somewhere in the past we have faintly seen it, whose life we all of us thirst for because somewhere in the past we have seen it lived, have maybe even had moments of living it ourselves. Remember him who himself remembers us as he promised to remember the thief who died beside him. To have faith is to remember and wait, and to wait in hope is to have what we hope for already begin to come true in us through our hoping. Praise him.
Anyway, I highly recommend both Wendell Berry and Frederick Buechner.
And, of course, there’s always Jorge Luis Borges…
In the golden afternoon, or in a serenity the gold of afternoon might symbolize, a man arranges books on waiting shelves and feels the parchment, the leather, the cloth, and the pleasure bestowed by looking forward to a habit and establishing an order. Here Stevenson and Andrew Lang, the other Scot, will magically resume their slow discussion which seas and death cut short, and surely Reyes will not be displeased by the closeness of Virgil. (In a modest, silent way, by ranging books on shelves we ply the critic’s art.) The man is blind, and knows he won’t be able to decode the handsome volumes he is handling, and that they will never help him write the book that will justify his life in others’ eyes; but in the afternoon that might be gold he smiles at his curious fate and feels that peculiar happiness which comes from loved old things.
How was your weekend? Ours was quiet. Daughter #1 arrived on Sunday after church. She is going on a business trip on Tuesday, leaving from our airport, so that is why she came into town at the end of the weekend. The boy and his family were in K.C. all weekend and came home on Sunday afternoon. We had the pleasure of the boy and the wee laddie’s company for a barbecue Sunday night…
…but the girls were too tired and stayed home. It is always interesting to see one twin without the other. They are two very different people indeed.
I watched Tombstone (1993) on Friday night. I had seen it back when it came out and I didn’t think it was a good movie then, but I thought it might bear watching again. I was so wrong. I had forgotten how really bad it is. First of all, it is totally derivative of classic westerns, but of all the obvious things: you know, lots of cloud filled sky and lawmen walking/riding four abreast.
Anyway, it was just a mess–a horrible bloodbath of a violent nightmare. The movie starts off with a gang of cowboys shooting up a happy Mexican wedding for no reason. Yeah, that happened a lot. The movie doesn’t even try to be realistic or to be historically accurate.
The acting is pretty bad and also derivative. Powers Boothe offers a full blown imitation of Lee Marvin as Liberty Valance. Kurt Russell struggles (and fails) to be Henry Fonda. Was Bill Paxton going for Earl Holliman? 100%. I couldn’t help wondering what Sam Elliot, stiff and uncomfortable, thought of this mess. Only Val Kilmer attempts to make his part his own and his Doc Holliday is lost in the flood of violence and competing action. There are no good guys. Everyone is drowning in liquor, drugs and/or gambling. Nobody actually works. No one has a plan. The Earps just want to get rich so they can, what, settle down with their families? There is no ethical standard to judge right or wrong here. Is this the point, because, if so, it is a false point. This is a 20th century, post-Christian point, thank you, imposed on a revisionist dream of fake history.
The women are all cardboard and the actresses can hardly handle walking in their overly fancy dresses. Dana Delany plays a “modern” woman who has a crush on Wyatt Earp and doesn’t care that he is a married man. She just wants to have fun! Wyatt is attracted by this crazy idea (having fun, ordering room service) and to this liberated woman (who nevertheless rides side-saddle). It made me long for Burt Lancaster and his puritanical version of Wyatt Earp in the bad, but infinitely better, Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957).
All this made me want to watch My Darling Clementine (1947) which I will do soon. First I had to watch Red River (1948) on Saturday night in honor of National Cowboy Day. I almost cried, the contrast was so great. John Wayne and Montgomery Clift = perfection.
Sorry about the rant, but I despise movie makers who think a western is just an excuse to fire guns and kill a lot of people. There is talk of border ruffians in Missouri and lots of threats of violence, but only one person dies in Red River and he is trampled to death by stampeding cattle.
On a totally other subject, I liked this about going about your business in our rock-star culture:
But I say: Be nobody special. Do your job. Take care of your family. Clean your house. Mow your yard. Read your Bible. Attend worship. Pray. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Love your spouse. Love your kids. Be generous. Laugh with your friends. Drink your wine heartily. Eat your meat lustily. Be honest. Be kind to your waitress. Expect no special treatment. And do it all quietly.
You want to be a spiritual hero? Distinguish yourself? Ironically, you have to give it up. This sounds like “lose your life so you can save it” for a reason. Being nobody special will feel like losing your life, maybe the life you’ve dreamed of in front of the mirror…But to distinguish yourself in our world, you must be happy about being a nobody.
Another week has passed and soon will fade into snatches of memory: an anniversary celebrated, a movie watched, errands run, packages received, emails sent, and words exchanged in conversation. By next week I will remember what this post records and little else. Here are the highlights of my week.
My office is finally finished! I put the last posters up this afternoon.
Note the new poster half-frames, a marvelous invention that a colleague recommended. These ingenious ‘frames’ consist of four strips of magnetized wood, two at the top and two at the bottom of the poster, so that the it hangs correctly. Frames come in a wide variety of sizes, are incredibly easy to assemble and look great. (A number of different companies make these and I chose almost randomly; I’m not endorsing one in particular.) Here’s another view of the office.
As you can see, I still have piles of paper to go through but it’s getting there, and I am quite happy on the ground floor.
In other news, I received Storm over Sky in the mail and was delighted to discover that it is the prequel to Master of Morgana and takes place about a year earlier.
Lest you doubt that our young hero could experience so much adventure in quick succession, the plot involves trying to catch the sheep thief who threatens to destroy the community’s livelihood and mutual trust. I can’t wait to read it!
When not working (I did do plenty of that), I watched an Indian movie called Talvar from 2015, starring Irrfan Khan. Based on a real case, it is the story of a respectable dentist and his wife who awake one morning to find their 14 year old daughter in her bed with her throat slit. Having failed initially to undertake a complete search of the compound, the authorities eventually find the family’s live-in servant, a 50 year old man, similarly murdered on the roof-top terrace of the house.
The parents’ claim to have slept through the murders seems unlikely, but if they were smart enough to plan the crime, then they should have come up with a better excuse. Rashomon-like, the film presents three different explanations, each of which is incomplete or tainted in some way. The local police are so stupid and incompetent that they ruin the forensic evidence and assume the parents are guilty. The national police take over the case but care only for political advancement and so suppress the findings of their one competent investigator (Khan) on the grounds that his methods are not altogether legit. A third investigator comes up with another implausible explanation, while the media report every sensational and unverified rumor about the poor young victim. Like Rashomon, the story does not inspire confidence in one’s fellow man. The film was well done and interesting enough to make me look up the real case, the unsolved 2008 Noida double murders.
Perhaps the world is full of awful people. I prefer to think that it is full of decent people who are sometimes awful and often stupid. Be humble and remember, the fact that we can outwit sheep and lobsters (as the DH puts it) may place us at the top of the food chain, but it doesn’t mean we’re very smart.
Well, the summer is meandering along and soon will be over! We seem to do the same things over and over. Time like an ever rolling stream…
Anyway, it is a good time to re-read Thoreau’s A Walk to Wachusett, which he recorded on July 19, 1842.
It was at no time darker than twilight within the tent, and we could easily see the moon through its transparent roof as we lay; for there was the moon still above us, with Jupiter and Saturn on either hand, looking down on Wachusett, and it was a satisfaction to know that they were our fellow-travelers still, as high and out of our reach as our own destiny. Truly the stars were given for a consolation to man.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the death of Ulysses Grant in 1885. Let’s all take a moment to remember our 18th president. His funeral in New York City demonstrated the great love and admiration the country felt for their former president and Civil War hero. He was respected not only by comrades in arms but also by former enemies. Marching as pallbearers beside the Union generals William Tecumseh Sherman and Philip Sheridan were two Confederate generals, Joe Johnston and Simon Buckner.
The column of mourners who accompanied Grant was seven miles long. (This is an interesting thread with photos of all the honorary pall bearers.)
Placed in a “temporary” tomb in Riverside Park, Grant’s body stayed there for nearly 12 years, while supporters raised money for the construction of a permanent resting place. In what was then the biggest public fundraising campaign in history, some 90,000 people from around the world donated over $600,000 to build Grant’s Tomb. A million people, including President William McKinley, attended the tomb’s dedication on April 27, 1897, 10 days after Grant’s body had been moved there. Grant’s Tomb was — and is —the largest tomb in North America.
I’ll also remind you that Saturday is the National Day of the Cowboy. Celebrate it in appropriate style!
As Emerson Hough wrote in his “Passing of the Frontier,” the time of the Cattle Kings, though short, was
…a wild, strange day…There never was a better life than that of the cowman who had a good range on the Plains and cattle enough to stock his range. There never will be found a better man’s country in all the world than that which ran from the Missouri up to the low foothills of the Rockies.
I plan, of course, to watch some good cowboy movies, including (but not limited to) Red River (1948), as is my tradition.
You might also want to read up on some of your favorite western artists or just look at some great western art…
They’ll be celebrating in Oklahoma City at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum with numerous events, but we can all plan our own party. Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving, as Auntie Mame said. So heat up some beans and join me in watching Red River!
By the way, last night we watched The Best of Times (1986), a movie I have a great fondness for, in memory of Robin Williams. You will recall that it is about re-playing a high school football game played in the fall of 1972, which was a disaster for the characters played by Robin Williams and Kurt Russell. (The OM was playing football that year and so it always resonates with him.) It’s a classic and I highly recommend it.
You will recall that years ago I planted seeds given to me by my assistant (harvested from her yard) and they grew and bloomed once. Since then the plants have grown but never bloomed. Either they were cut down by accident, eaten by deer (?) or whatever. But, hallelujah, they have bloomed again! This brings me joy. You can see, too, that the Tiger Lilies are still going strong (all over our flyover town). I guess they like all the rain we’ve had.
Meanwhile I have been reading Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry. It is a good first novel, but not great. As I figured, it is told from the perspective of the boy, Lonnie, and Hud has only a small, incidental part. Someone in Hollywood must have had the idea that the ornery, bad guy would make a better subject for a movie, and they were probably right. They changed a lot in the book. I wonder what McMurtry thought.
“I just wonder, when it’s all said and done,” he went on, “who ends up with the most in this scramble. Them that go in for big shows and big prizes and end up takin’ a bustin’, or them that plug along at what they can kinda handle. Home folks or show folks. They’s a lot a difference in ’em.”
Here is Paul Zahl’s list of movies on TCM in July (Part II). As usual, we are on the same page. What he says about Bonnie and Clyde is right on.
Today is the birthday of Robin Williams. Maybe I’ll watch Awakenings (1990) or Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), my favorite RW movies. Or maybe I’ll watch RV (2006)–who knows? Just remember ol’ Robin and go for the gusto, or at the very least, reach out to someone with a smile. It might go a long way.
And here’s a toast to Don Knotts on his birthday: Just a little lower, Barney.
I’m taking the blog duties today and my mother will be back tomorrow.
Today for work, I ventured all the way to St. Joseph, MO and back (it is a bit of a trek) for an announcement and to shoot a video for our social media platforms. Can you spot me in this picture? That pink jacket is bright.
In my world, two cameras in the Buchanan County courthouse is a win. And worth criss-crossing the Missouri River. If you’re wondering, did I snag the aux cord and play “Don’t Cross the River” as we crossed the river for six or eighth time (you lose count), the answer is yes.
I got to see more of downtown St. Joseph than I did when we were here last year. They are the county seat of Buchanan County and thus have a square with the courthouse in the middle. There are some old buildings. But, the city itself kind of has the vibe of one whose time has passed it by. This is to say, the city is kind of run down.
However, I just learned on the Wikipedia page that Eminem was born in St. Joseph before moving to Detroit. Hello! Of course, it is was also the start of the Pony Express and the place where Jesse James died. Another fun fact: St. Joseph was the second U.S. city to install electric street cars. It has its own tv market–although it is the 201st largest of 210 U.S. markets.
Today kicks off several busy weeks for me. I will be in Salt Lake City next week for a conference–look forward to a post from Daughter #2. Then, Daughter #2 is coming to town the following week (woo hoo)! After that, it’s the Bicentennial celebrations (where the most exciting event is the ice cream social at Central Dairy). And then the State Fair kicks off. Big things in Mid-MO! And good blog posts to come.
Well, I have to say these Presbyterians I worship with now sure can belt out a hymn–four hymns, in fact, every service. Everyone sings, even the teenagers! Hallelujah, brothers and sisters. It surprises me every week. What a nice surprise!
The twins came over twice this weekend. On Friday morning we entertained each other while daughter #3 did something. Lottie, ever the chatterbox, brought me up to date on all the goings on in her life. The wee laddie, who plays his cards much closer to the chest, concentrated on his cars.
On Saturday we celebrated the OM’s birthday. His favorite present was a DVD from daughter #1 of his favorite movie Ford vs Ferrari (2019).
Yes, I know, we look like Mr and Mrs Crypt Keeper, but even in our decrepitude, we had fun and it was even balmy enough for us to sit out on the driveway.
While daughter # 1 was in town we also managed to have a margarita at Club Taco, while enjoying the musical stylings of Dusty Rhodes.
We also went to a couple of estate sales and braved one un-airconditioned antique mall. (I learned from my friend Becky always to travel with a fan.)
In other news, the boy and his family ventured to Grant’s Farm for the first time in ages…
…and daughter #2 and famille ventured to the beach in North Carolina.
(Baby Katie’s bathing suit care of daughter #3’s golden needle!)
And these made me laugh out loud.
Have a good week. The peace of Christ be with you.
dual personalities 