dual personalities

…cast me not away from thee, let thy Spirit dwell in me…*

It was a quiet weekend…except for an earthquake on Friday evening!

The OM and I were watching the news when we thought we heard two loud booms and the house shook for a second. We thought it might be a) an earthquake, b) an explosion or c) a bad car crash. Daughter #1 texted a little while later that she had received a ‘push alert’ about an earthquake in Valley Park.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change
And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea;
Though its waters roar and foam,
Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride. Selah.

–Psalm 46: 2-3

What next? Do we dare ask?

I cajoled the OM into accompanying me on Saturday to an open house held at the 1816 log house in Affton, MO, which will be disassembled and moved to the Thomas Sappington House Historic Site in Crestwood.

This is a great example of a small local group working tirelessly to preserve a small piece of history. They are still raising money so that the two Sappington cousins’ houses built in the early 1800s – Thomas’ brick house, now a museum, and Joseph’s log house (above)–can be preserved together. (The log cabin is currently located in a residential area, surrounded by small homes, and has been lived in by private owners all these years.)

There are lots of people who could just write a big check and make this happen but historic preservation is not high on most people’s priority lists these days. C’est la vie. It will happen, one small donation at a time.

On Sunday we met up with the boy and the wee twins at church per usual and then headed home afterwards for some brunch and driveway sittin’. (It was perfect weather for driveway sittin’ but I have no pictures of us just sittin’…)

And we always have fun looking for the hidden animals in the yard…

…and seeing what’s about to bloom…Iris buds!

I was struck in church by the thought of how blessed I was to be sitting between my husband and my grown son. This, after decades of being the “Widow Compton” at my old Episcopal Church, is not a small thing. (One old lady even thought I had married the actual widower with whom I generally shared a pew!) But the menfolk in my family like the new church–and no wonder–it is full of men! (I like it for that reason too.) Discuss among yourselves.

I watched the Horse Soldiers (1959) in honor of Ulysses Grant and Bing Russell and thoroughly enjoyed it.

It is such a great movie. I don’t understand why it is so often considered to be one of John Ford’s lesser films. The stars are great together and the supporting cast is without parallel in my opinion. It was filmed on location in Mississippi and so has an authenticity a lot of Civil War dramas lack. (Compare the plantation Greenbriar in this movie to Tara.) Ford himself tended to dismiss the film, in large part I think because a stuntman was killed while filming. This greatly upset him and he ended filming the movie abruptly and returned to California.

Nevertheless, it is one of my favorites.

It is supposed to rain on and off again all week, but oh well. I’ll find something to do.

*The Psalter, 1912