dual personalities

Month: August, 2022

August 31, 2022

“Ain’t no use jiving/Ain’t no use joking/Everything is broken.”

by chuckofish

It is true. Daughter #1 is finally back on blog post duty. The past several weeks have been full of crazy mishaps and scheduling situations, but never fear, I am here with a mish mosh of a post. Seriously, last week, I got home from work, settled in to watch a little Brooklyn-99 before writing my blog post and found the internet was not working. As I struggled to reach the modem in the top of the closet and then to navigate the CenturyLink website from my phone to determine if there was an outage in my area, I kid you not, “Helpless” by Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young was stuck in my head. The nasally tone of Neil Young repeating “Helpless, helpless, he-el-pless” would not stop. Because when the internet is out in your town, you really are pretty helpless.

Anyway, to begin, I feel that I need to tell you that my secret shame is that I love Flaming Hot Cheetos. I deserve your judgment. Well, I also need to tell you that the devil tempted me to purchase this product while at the grocery store recently. I thought I would it try as a blog content.

You can all thank me for telling you what should already be obvious from the packaging and product itself. It is gross. It doesn’t really have a flavor. But the sheer amount of Red Dye #40 is what really made me want to gag. I did not eat more than three bites. Just call me a content creator.

From one cheetah to another, I present what is sure to be darling Katie’s favorite dress.

Isn’t this Rifle Paper Company fabric just the loveliest? I love everything they create. I will be sure to provide updated pictures when we see if it fits.

This hit a little too close to home given that I know my mother’s password.

And this made me laugh. Snoopy is so sophisticated. But, I’d feel the same way.

As I frequently say on the blog, you’ve got to find some small joys in life as it really does feel as if everything is broken all around us.

4 Comments
August 30, 2022

Balm in Gilead

by chuckofish

Last week I mentioned in a post that Toshiro Mifune is one of my Top Five favorite actors. That got me thinking and when I had lunch with the boy on Thursday we discussed the topic at length. I explained that by Top Five, I meant my personal favorites, i.e. not necessarily the most handsome or most gifted actors. Just my favorites, the ones I will always stop and watch when one of their movies is on TCM etc. This explains why I have seen Bullitt so many times.

After much thought, these are my five:

  1. John Wayne–no surprise there.

2. Steve McQueen

3. Leslie Howard

4. Toshiro Mifune–

5. Paul Newman

That is a pretty great list, am I right? And none of it is a surprise to readers of this blog. (Errol Flynn almost edged his way in.) All five made some great movies and even the ones that are not so great boost my spirits.

I guess it is sad that there is no one on this list born later than 1930, but what can I say?

If I had to add a “modern” fave, I would go with this guy:

How about you?

I will also note that today is the birthday of Virginia Lee Burton (1909-1968), artist, author and founder of the textile collective Folly Cove. Her book The Little House has always been a favorite of mine and I will toast her tonight.

P.S. On Sunday when the wee bud and I were walking around the outside of the house “looking for things,” he said, “Let’s go in the nature room.” I thought that was kind of brilliant.

Have a great day. Watch a good movie. Read a good book. Look for things outside.

8 Comments
August 29, 2022

“While the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high”*

by chuckofish

On Friday I went to my BFF Carla’s mother’s funeral. It was a very watered down Catholic/Episcopal service loosely officiated by Carla’s cousin (a Catholic priest) and her son Michael (an Episcopal priest) with Eucharist (wafer and white wine). No pomp. No circumstance. Her mother Rosemary would have liked it that way.

My favorite memory of Rosemary is the time we went to hear her grandson preach and after the service we talked about how all of us flyover friends and relatives should go to his ordination in NYC. We laughed picturing us all pulling up in front of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine like the Beverly Hillbillies in an overloaded pickup truck. I told Michael that story before the funeral and he showed me the picture of just that–Rosemary in front of the cathedral with the entire family (sans pickup.) She was very proud of all her grandchildren.

Into paradise may the angels lead thee, Rosemary, and at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem. (BCP, Burial of the Dead)

The rest of my weekend was pretty quiet. The boy and the twins were back at church with us and then came over for brunch and some driveway sittin’.

The wee bud took the Raptor out for a spin…

…and a good time was had by all.

I watched Santa Fe Trail (1940) starring Errol Flynn as Jeb Stuart and Ronald Regan as George Custer.

Although it bears no connection to historical reality, it nevertheless holds up very well as a movie. Directed by Michael Curtiz and with the Warner Brothers A Team of supporting actors, it tells a good yarn, and as the boy said, Raymond Massey was born to play John Brown.

And I talked to these sweet ladies…

…who were doing some driveway sittin’ of their own.

*Charles Wesley, 1740

5 Comments
August 26, 2022

Some of my worst mistakes in life were haircuts*

by chuckofish

Don’t think I’m crazy for writing today’s post. I had an all-day department retreat yesterday and afterward went looking for a good laugh. I ended up perusing bad soccer-player hairdos. (Don’t ask how. It just happened). I can’t say I’ve made a lot of haircut mistakes myself, and most people seem to manage their hair without too much difficulty, but many soccer players are an exception to this rule. I don’t want to make anyone feel bad… but I challenge you to see these without laughing or shaking your head. Which is your favorite?

A. The basic mullet, c. 1985

B. Good grief! What were they thinking? c. 1970s.

C.  All the rage in Brazil c. 2014.

D. Not to be outdone by the Brazilians.

E. How does one play soccer with hair like this?

F. Finally, a fan’s homage to Lionel Messi via a very talented barber.

Well, that brightened my mood considerably. I hope it brightened yours. I think I liked the “What were they thinking?” group best. Those people weren’t trying to be outrageous. The others obviously wanted to shock and elicit comment, but those dudes, well, they thought they were being stylish. Please do give me your reactions in the comments and be sure to let me know if you plan to copy any of these when you get your next haircut!

Have a wonderful weekend but stay away from the scissors!

All photos via Google Image

*Jim Morrison

4 Comments
August 25, 2022

God’s gonna trouble the water

by chuckofish

I continue to read through the Bible and I am enjoying it. Barring some catastrophe, I know I can finish! Daughter #1 says my plan is weird, and it is true that in my plan I read through the NT twice, but I am sticking with it. And when I finish, I will start all over. Last week I read Romans chapter 12 (again) and I was struck by verses 9-21. Here are some clearcut, straightforward rules for life, as laid out by Saint Paul:

1. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 

2. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

3. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 

4. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 

5. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 

6. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 

7. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 

8. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 

9. To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 

10. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

–Romans 12: 12-21 (ESV)

Post these simple rules on your refrigerator and read them every morning!

“A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.”― Charles H. Spurgeon

Here’s a song I like:

And here’s a little good news for a change, care of Albert Pujols.

Don’t worry. Wade in the water, children.

5 Comments
August 24, 2022

The world is vast and boundless. Be steadfast.

by chuckofish

Daughter #1 usually posts on Wednesdays, but her internet was out last night so she could not write her post about the Missouri State Fair as she had planned. C’est la vie.

I was not prepared to write a post on short notice so I will just note that I DVR’d, as planned, all the samurai movies which TCM ran on Toshiro Mifune day last week. Last night I watched Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954), directed by Hiroshi Inagaki and starring Toshiro Mifune.

It won the Academy Award for outstanding foreign film that year and they got that right.

Personally, I really love Toshiro Mifune, and I would even go so far as to say he is in the Top Five of my all-time favorite actors. (Who are the other four you ask? That is a post for another day.)

And here’s a samurai poem by Robert Pinsky.

4 Comments
August 23, 2022

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”*

by chuckofish

Another summer is slipping away. The twins have started kindergarten! The time just skis by.

Sunrise, sunset.

I must note that tomorrow is the birthday of the great Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). A toast (or two or three) is in order for this great Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, who thought about time a lot too.

We are the time. We are the famous
metaphor from Heraclitus the Obscure.

We are the water, not the hard diamond,
the one that is lost, not the one that stands still.

We are the river and we are that greek
that looks himself into the river. His reflection
changes into the waters of the changing mirror,
into the crystal that changes like the fire.

We are the vain predetermined river,
in his travel to his sea.

The shadows have surrounded him.
Everything said goodbye to us, everything goes away.

Memory does not stamp his own coin.

However, there is something that stays
however, there is something that bemoans.

–“We are the Time. We are the Famous”

*Heraclitus

3 Comments
August 22, 2022

You know my sitting down and my rising up”*

by chuckofish

We had a nice weekend in flyover land with temperatures in the low eighties and low humidity. That is about as good as it gets here in the summer and I am grateful.

Daughter #1 came home and we enjoyed some normal weekend-y activities. The boy and I also went in his truck to pick up a “new” vintage camelback sofa I had bought at our local antique mall last week. Now we have to deal with disposing of our old sofa, which, believe me, is not easy!

We went to church on Sunday where we heard a good, long sermon on Luke 16:1-13, a hard parable, which the preacher met head-on. Later in the afternoon the OM and I returned for the fall ministry kickoff picnic which was actually a lot of fun. Everyone is returning to school and that means that the summer, I guess, is more or less officially over. Sigh.

I was sad to read that the College Hill Presbyterian Church in Oxford, Mississippi, had burned to the ground. The church was built in 1846 and was the oldest church structure in Oxford, as well as the oldest Presbyterian church in all of North Mississippi. The grounds of the church were used by Union troops under Generals Grant and Sherman during the Civil War, and it is where William Faulkner was married.

Before the fire

In other news, a ridiculous story has recently been making the rounds of social media claiming that six security men had to hold back John Wayne from assaulting Sacheen Littlefeather at the 1973 Academy Awards. Blogger Farran Smith Nehme, aka the Self-Styled Siren, has now thoroughly researched and debunked this fantasy in a well-written article. People have no shame nowadays about lying and spreading more lies.

But this story about the Samaritan’s Purse volunteers helping people right here in St. Louis is uplifting. They walk the walk. Check out the video.

Also, Katiebelle got a haircut…

…and she approved…

And here’s R.C. Sproul explaining flat-out nonsense:

Well, have a good week!

*Psalm 139: 2

3 Comments
August 19, 2022

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air*

by chuckofish

Earlier this summer I signed up for a ‘flower CSA’ run by a colleague’s entrepreneurial eleven-year-old daughter. She lives on a farm where there is plenty of space for flower-growing. I think it was a clever business idea, and she is doing a great job. The weekly bouquet has proved a wonderful morale booster. Last week I received this pretty bunch,

and here is the one that I picked up today:

I confess that I cannot identify most of the flowers, and I know that my arranging style is probably best described as chaotic, but I love the way they brighten up a room. Honestly, I’d rather participate in a flower CSA than a vegetable one. We’ve done that before but gave up because we mostly received unidentifiable greens. What can I say? I am not fond of kale.

In other news, I found out that our great aunt and uncles – Dora (age 10), Kenneth (age 9) and Thomas (age 7) Cameron – went from South Africa to the poorhouse in Dundee Scotland, which they entered on July 19th, 1870. Our great-grandfather Daniel ended up in similar straits but in Edinburgh, presumably because he was 13 (I posted about him back in 2013). Here’s the front of the Dundee poorhouse which was a much larger complex of buildings than this photo suggests.

I suspect that the younger children went to Dundee because it’s in Forfar, and that’s where their mother came from. If so, they arrived only to discover that the family couldn’t take them, didn’t live there anymore, or had all died out. At any rate, the children didn’t stay in Dundee for long, for they appear in the 1871 census living in Kilmallie, Argyll with two spinster sisters, Elizabeth and Mary McColl. All of this raises several questions. Thomas was not the son of our great grandfather who died in 1861. What happened to his father, and why did Thomas go by Cameron? Did Ann’s second husband have the same surname as our great grandfather? Was there no second husband? Also, I find it interesting that the children ended up in Kilmaillie, their father’s birthplace. Could the spinster ladies have been related to his mother? Perhaps they were aunts. It’s all an intriguing mystery. I’ll keep digging…

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with some ‘ancestral mathematics’ to consider.

Food for thought… Have a great weekend!

*Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.

3 Comments
August 18, 2022

A dark mythological river

by chuckofish

Today is National Bad Poetry Day. This seems to me to be a stupid holiday and I will ignore it. I prefer to read some good poetry. Here’s Billy Collins reading his poem “Forgetfulness,” which is a favorite of mine.

(We cannot mention Collins without remembering this classic.)

Here’s Richard Burton reading John Donne…

…Ralph Fiennes reads Kipling’s “The Way Through the Woods”…

…”Two English Poems” by Jorge Luis Borges read by Tom O’Bedlam…

Don’t you feel better…and smarter? (Even if you are losing your memory.)

Here’s an interesting chat with Carl Trueman. And here’s a good reminder. You can do this.

Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
    or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.
3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.

–Psalm 1: 1-3
5 Comments