Well, my mother and her dual personality both made it to Michigan to hang for the weekend with their brother. I got up and drove my mother (and my father who was off on a work trip ) to the airport early, early this morning. Yes, I’m a good daughter.
I have had a pretty normal week, with nothing too exciting to report. I had a very full weekend–and it didn’t rain on the birthday party! I also rearranged my living room furniture BY MYSELF to keep Mr. Smith off the radiator/windows.
It looks like there is no gap between the couch and the radiator, but it is a big enough gap to walk through. He’s a little betrayed but adjusting. He can still monitor the street, but he doesn’t get so excited/rage-filled when people walk by. And he can’t scratch the windows anymore!
It was an endeavor, but well worth it.
Well, prayers for a fun weekend for the sibs in Michigan and safe return travels on Sunday. xo.
So I am off to Detroit this morning and points north. As usual, I am traveling alone (the OM is going to a conference in Nashville), but I tell myself:
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes You can steer yourself Any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
I can handle it, right? I am thankful that my brother will be there to meet me.
We are experiencing some lovely weather this week and–bonus!–the cicadas seem to be gone! I was working outside on Tuesday when I suddenly noticed how quiet it was. The incredible din was gone. Thanks be to God.
The boy and his family have been in Florida this week–first at DisneyWorld and then in Sarasota with the other grandparents–so, even without the cicadas, it’s been pretty quiet around here.
(I had no idea it ever rained in DisneyWorld!!)
But I am getting ready for a short jaunt of my own up to Michigan on Thursday to meet with my sister and brother at his lake house. It has been a decade since I ventured up there, so I am looking forward to it.
The summer moves along…
I watched the great Italian movie La Strada (1954) the other day. It is one of my favorites. Federico Fellini’s masterpiece about a traveling strongman who buys a young girl from her poverty-stricken mother in ugly postwar Italy should be depressing, but somehow it is not. Anthony Quinn plays the strongman, who is a brute, a beast without an inner monologue. Giulietta Masina gives a shining performance as Gelsomina, the simple girl who follows him, and Richard Basehart is the Fool who tries to teach her that everyone has a purpose in life. It is a hard lesson to learn under the circumstances. “The Road” is a metaphor for life, of course, and so it is full of sadness and comedy. Here is Martin Scorsese talking about it.
“And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.” (Isaiah 35:8)
Have a good day–enjoy the good (or bad) weather, watch an old movie, and remember that your most important attachment is to God.
I am currently reading Ecclesiastes in my daily Bible reading and it is a wonderful reminder that earthly treasures are precarious and can cause a lot of anxiety. For those who know, however, that God is the source of the richness of life, there are many pleasures in life and the ability to enjoy them.
What gain has the worker from his toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. (Ecclesiastes 3:9-13)
It’s really pretty simple. Work hard, do good, worship God and enjoy Him forever.
Here are three things you should know about Ecclesiastes.
Here’s an interesting article about Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon (1707–1791) who was an English Christian and religious leader who played a prominent part in the religious revival of the 18th century and the Methodist movement in England and Wales. She did a lot of good in her life.
“The Sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which the child of God rests his head.” –Charles Spurgeon
My weekend was a quiet one, especially compared with last weekend. Since I was still recovering from a cold (or whatever), I didn’t do much. Daughter #1 came over while Mr. Smith was being groomed on Friday and we went to Hobby Lobby. After we picked him up we enjoyed Happy Hour at my house, which has become somewhat of a routine (a good one.)
I did very little on Saturday, but watched the PGA tour on TV. I’m so happy to see Scottie back on top. The OM and I watched The Boys in the Boat (2023) on Prime and enjoyed it. It is based on the fantastic (true) story of the University of Washington J.V. crew team that beat the Ivy League elite teams for a spot on the 1936 US Olympic team. I read the book back in 2015.
(The blond kid really reminded me of my nephew Foster throughout the movie.)
The film, directed by George Clooney, is well done, but lacks a certain spark that would have made it a great movie. I know I sound like a broken record but back in the day Michael Curtiz or Howard Hawks or John Ford would have known how to supply that spark. For one thing, you don’t learn much about any of the guys on the crew team except for the hero Joe Rantz (Callum Turner). In a sport where all eight members of the team must move in unison, it is a mistake to make them all invisible except for 2 or 3. Also, the coxswain was an integral part of the team and you don’t get to know that really until the end. It just fell a little flat to me. Too bad, because it is such a great story! Read the book!
It was good to be back in church after a week away when we were out of town. We had a guest preacher, a church member who is on the faculty at Covenant Theological Seminary up the road. Our pastor introduced him by reciting his impressive CV and also by mentioning that once in a meeting J.I. Packer had conceded a point to him. Everyone laughed–Presbyterian humor. Anyway, it was a good sermon on Psalm One.
After church there was a meeting for VBS volunteers–zut alors!
They had me with the first graders, and I was, like, no way, José ! They switched me to 4/5th graders. Okay, then. They can at least go to the bathroom by themselves.
Well, I have a week to get my head straight with this.
Happy Friday, dear readers. This week was touch and go. Each day felt like it should have been Friday. But, we’re finally here. Unfortunately, as with most weekends these days, I have plans that require me to be somewhere at 9 a.m. Never any evening plans for this girl. But plenty of Saturday morning activities. Sigh.
Here’s a cute picture of Mr. Smith to brighten this missive. He is going to the groomer this afternoon for a summer haircut. He’ll look like a totally different dog when they’re through with him! I say dog, but he’s been on a chewing streak lately that is beginning to make me feel like I have a beaver for a pet. I’m not happy with him. But his little face is so cute.
I hope you have wonderful weekends. Do your chores. Have a glass of rose. Or two. Count it all joy. Even if it is your friend’s three-year-old twins’ birthday party at a park in the rain on Saturday morning.
All the flowers have been blooming ahead of schedule this spring–now the day lilies are going strong!
Don’s flowers are amazing!
I am happy to have his photos to share because I am feeling too crummy to go outside and take pictures of my own. Yes, another cold with painful sinuses. What is with this? I am not amused.
Anyway, I wanted to remind everyone that, of course, today is June 6th and that means the 80th anniversary of D-Day! Lest we forget, D-Day was the name given to the June 6, 1944, invasion of the beaches at Normandy in northern France by troops from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom during World War II. France at the time was occupied by the armies of Nazi Germany, and the amphibious assault—codenamed Operation Overlord—landed some 156,000 Allied soldiers on the beaches of Normandy by the end of the day.
So a toast to those brave men who stormed the beaches–including Robert Montgomery, Yogi Berra, James Doohan, Charles Durning, David Niven, Alec Guinness, Richard Todd (parachuting from a plane), and, of course, J.D. Salinger. John Ford was also there, leading a team of US Coast Guard cameramen in filming a documentary on D-Day for the Navy. I like to think of my friend Herschel, who also parachuted from a plane and lived to return to flyover country and lead his mild-mannered life. I only knew about his involvement in D-Day when I read it in his obituary.
I’m going to watch The Longest Day (1962) tonight but it will probably take me three nights to see the whole thing.
(Red Buttons in the Herschel A. part.)
Lest we forget.
Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.
Today we toast the American writer Stephen Crane, who died on this day in 1900 at the age of 28. He wrote poetry and short stories and the famous war novel The Red Badge of Courage.
A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army’s feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.
John Huston made a movie adaption of the novel in 1951 starring Audie Murphy. Although I know a man who just thinks it is the best movie ever, I find that hard to believe, given the star and the director, but I should see it before I judge. I should also read the book again, which I may have read in high school, but I do not remember it clearly. The Civil War scene in How the West Was Won (1962) where George Peppard drinks from the bloody river with the confederate deserter is derivative I’m sure. Anyway, I’ll add that to my list.
Willa Cather wrote this lovely piece –When I Knew Stephen Crane–and sums him up brilliantly. She was a college girl when she was acquainted with him briefly in Lincoln, Nebraska and he opened up to her on a memorable evening.
Men will sometimes reveal themselves to children, or to people whom they think never to see again, more completely than they ever do to their confreres. From the wise we hold back alike our folly and our wisdom, and for the recipients of our deeper confidences we seldom select our equals. The soul has no message for the friends with whom we dine every week. It is silenced by custom and convention, and we play only in the shallows. It selects its listeners willfully, and seemingly delights to waste its best upon the chance wayfarer who meets us in the highway at a fated hour. There are moments too, when the tides run high or very low, when self-revelation is necessary to every man, if it be only to his valet or his gardener. At such a moment, I was with Mr. Crane.
I will also note that Stagecoach (1939) is on TCM tonight. It is always a good time to watch this movie, which is one of the best 96 minutes ever put on film. Stagecoach was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture; Thomas Mitchell received an Academy Award for his supporting role as “Doc Boone,” and Richard Hageman, Franke Harling, John Leipold and Leo Shuken received an Academy Award for their score. Stagecoach also made the National Board of Review’s ten best list, and John Ford was honored as best director of 1939 by the New York Film Critics. It catapulted the western genre into the A-film realm. (And, of course, the stunts are out of this world.)
Here’s Viggo Mortensen’s take on Stagecoach:
So read an old book, watch an old movie (again) and praise God from whom all blessings flow!
(The photo is Stephen Crane in Corwin Knapp Linson’s studio on West 22nd Street, Manhattan, c. 1894, when Crane was writing The Red Badge of Courage.)(Syracuse University Libraries via Roger Williams University)
Like baby Ida, it is taking me some time to recover from my busy weekend.
This week I will be catching up on a lot of things and working on an article for the Kirkwood Review. Besides the usual laundry and tidying up, I have quite a bit of Bible reading to catch up on. In my chronological Bible I am still in I Kings/I Chronicles and Psalms. I can’t help chuckling that I am such a movie nerd that when I read the verses Psalm 46: 10-11, I heard the voices of the Colour Sergeant and the missionary in a famous scene from Zulu (1964)!
I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
I’m sure some of you can relate.
Here’s a good reminder that you do not need to be perfect for God to use you. And as the line from my favorite hymn says, “if you tarry till you’re better, you will never come at all.”
And by the way, I volunteered to do VBS again this year, so I am preparing myself mentally for some good times to come in two weeks.
Onward and upward.
*I’m trying to appreciate this along with Walt Whitman (Miracles)–as our cicada invasion continues…
Well, the whole family converged on Champaign County to celebrate sweet Katie’s 4th birthday. It was quite a gala event. It would have been nice if it hadn’t rained all day on Saturday, but we count it all joy and DN managed to grill!
The birthday girl was delighted with her presents and with her cousins who are more fun than a veritable barrel of monkeys.
We will all, no doubt, need a few days to recover.
We gave Katie the Little Tikes Cape Cottage Playhouse and she was quite taken with it. It will move outside but the kids were entertained in it for hours on a rainy Saturday afternoon after DN was kind enough to put it together. (And he did it without swearing once!)
Lottie drew a picture of the girls excluding the bud from the house–girls only! (Some things never change, do they?)
That didn’t last long.
We took very few pictures of any grown ups but we were all there. Quite a treat!
dual personalities 