Well, we’ve made it to Friday again. Praise hands all around. I had a relatively uneventful week. My boss was gone for half of the week and her boss was gone the whole week, so I worked from home. What a treat. I crossed a lot of my to do list.
But, I don’t have much to write about. Mr. Smith was on nutball status all week so I don’t even have a cute picture of him. Thus, we are left with things I’ve saved on Instagram.
I’m sorry, but naturally I thought of this:
I’m seriously ready for it to be dark at 5 p.m. and 30 degrees so that people stop walking by house between 5 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. every night. Anyway, have a lovely weekend!
Yesterday the twins came over at 9:00 in the morning and stayed all day because their Mom is back at work this week, but school doesn’t start until next week.
We played inside, played outside, watched YouTube videos about natural disasters, went to Dewey’s for pizza (where the bud spilled an entire glass of Sprite and burped very loudly so that a man outside said, “You were burping in the restaurant, weren’t you?”), got wet running to the car in the rain (even though we had an umbrella), played inside some more, and then watched a movie, which we finally agreed on after much wrangling: Ghostbusters (1984).
We watched most of it before their dad picked them up around 3:15. It was a long six-plus hours, but the truth is they are more fun than a barrel of monkeys.
I should note that there was also a plumber at our house for a good three hours, cabling the sewer line.
I am reading Jeremiah these days and it is just too relevant to our world today.
Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush.
–Jeremiah 8:12
Speaking of blushing, I watched a movie which I had DVR’d on TCM–Suddenly Last Summer (1959)–which seems all too apropos for our time. I had not seen it since I saw it on television long ago as an adolescent who really had no idea what was going on. I understand now what all the sturm and drang was about, dreamed up by Tennessee Williams and adapted for the screen by Gore Vidal.
The plot centers on Catherine Holly, a young woman who, at the insistence of her wealthy aunt, is being evaluated by a psychiatric doctor to receive a lobotomy after witnessing the death of her cousin Sebastian Venable while traveling with him the previous summer. Elizabeth Taylor stars as Catherine and Katharine Hepburn co-stars as her aunt, the mother of the dearly departed Sebastian. They compete outrageously throughout for the over-acting prize while Montgomery Clift lurks nearby as the surgeon who has been engaged to do the lobotomy, looking as if he is concentrating hard on remembering his lines. Of course it takes place in New Orleans. There is even a Venus Fly-trap symbolizing fill-in-the-blank. Thankfully, the doctor has his doubts about who is the actual crazy person and (spoiler alert) it all works out in the end.
It must have been pretty shocking back in 1959 and not surprisingly it did quite well at the box office, but I have to agree with the New Yorker critic who called it “a preposterous and monotonous potpourri of incest, homosexuality, psychiatry, and, so help me, cannibalism.”
Now, of course, all that incest, homosexuality and cannibalism is perfectly normal and we church-going types are the “weird” ones. C’est la vie.
Funnily enough (or not) no one won any Oscars that year for Suddenly Last Summer. It was the year of Ben-Hur…but what a hilarious selection of Best Actress nominees!
Today we celebrate Annie Oakley, born Phoebe Ann Mosey in 1860. She was an American sharpshooter and became a international celebrity, performing in Europe before royalty and other heads of state, when she toured with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.
There have been several movies, a TV show and a famous Broadway musical dedicated to her life. Indeed, when I was growing up, every child knew who Annie Oakley was. That is probably not the case anymore, although as a female hero, you can’t do much better. Oakley believed that women should learn to use a gun for the empowering image that it gave and I concur, but that is hardly a popular opinion these days.
Anyway, I will toast Annie Oakley tonight. I just watched Hidalgo (2004) which features Annie Oakley as a minor character. This is a good movie about the famous long-distance rider Frank T. Hopkins, and I enjoyed watching Viggo Mortensen effortlessly ride a horse, which as I have previously noted, is rare these days.
So if you are not in the mood for Annie Get Your Gun (1950), I recommend Hidalgo.
This is a good suggestion: Embrace the World’s Miraculous Absurdity. Also, the Bible includes several lists of sins. This article helps us understand those sins by reversing them.
How was your weekend? We had beautiful weather–temps in the 70s and 80s–unheard of for August! We tried to optimize time spent outside by going to the winery and also enjoying the first driveway sittin’ in a long time.
Friday evening daughter #1 and I went to church to hear Abram Van Engen talk about his new book on reading poetry.
I enjoyed it very much and am also enjoying reading his book. But then, I enjoy reading poetry. Van Engen contends that poets do what God instructed Adam to do–name creation (Genesis 2:19-20). And when you think about it, that is what poets do–they point things out, they draw our attention to things. I think of Billy Collins’ poem “Litany”:
You are the bread and the knife, the crystal goblet and the wine. You are the dew on the morning grass and the burning wheel of the sun. You are the white apron of the baker, and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
However, you are not the wind in the orchard, the plums on the counter, or the house of cards. And you are certainly not the pine-scented air. There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.
It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge, maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head, but you are not even close to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show that you are neither the boots in the corner nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.
It might interest you to know, speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world, that I am the sound of rain on the roof.
I also happen to be the shooting star, the evening paper blowing down an alley and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.
I am also the moon in the trees and the blind woman’s tea cup. But don’t worry, I’m not the bread and the knife. You are still the bread and the knife. You will always be the bread and the knife, not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.
and anything, of course, by Walt Whitman…
After working in the basement for awhile on Saturday morning, we went to our favorite winery in Hillsboro and sat and listened to music and people-watched and drank wine in the sunshine. That is the best way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
On Sunday we went to church. Unbeknowst to us (and everyone else) the man teaching our Sunday School class was sick and so they moved the Children’s Sunday School teacher training into our room, so we ended up attending the training class! It was interesting, but I do not plan to volunteer for that particular ministry.
After church I had lunch with my two best friends and later the boy and his family came over for some Sunday driveway sittin’. No one took any pictures except this one of Lottie with Mr. Smith.
We barbecued hotdogs and ate chips ‘n dip and watermelon, which everyone enjoyed. My philosophy is keep it simple.
Well, once again, we’ve made it to Friday. And to that I say PRAISE HANDS ALL AROUND. Sometimes, I don’t know which is worse: when work is so busy and I am stressed out about it or when it is so slow and I am bored out of my mind. I think it is the boring days. I do not enjoy reading the internet all day.
In other news, I had another bout of good luck at an estate sale last weekend and finally found a desk for my office! I’ve been using a table I bought at Ikea in approximately 2007. Good grief that table is approaching twenty years old! Anyway, I know you are itching for pictures of my recent finds, but I need to do some more work on the overall aesthetic of the rooms before sharing. Patience is a virtue.
Here is Mr. Smith keeping me company while I worked from home today. He’s a nutball and a nice distraction. In other Mr. Smith news, the neighbors to my left have moved (slash possibly fled town) and are renting their house to a “friend” who I’ve interacted with one time and who gave real The-Mean-Lady-Who-Stood-Next-To-Me-In-Middle-School-Handbell-Choir-And-Didn’t-Approve-Of-All-The-Giggling vibes (we didn’t have enough people so she played the high notes). This new neighbor also has a white dog but it is not a Westie. Mr. Smith may have a nemesis.
Sigh.
I’m trying to remember, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” –Romans 5:3-5
August is trudging along and I am trying to read some real books. I started Everything Sad Is Untrue: (A True Story) by Daniel Nayeri, but it has not grabbed me. I’ll keep going, but I promise nothing. Place In Time by Wendell Berry is really good. I love Wendell Berry. The Marilynne Robinson is also very good and I am reminded that it was my small group reading Genesis thirty-odd years ago that got me started on Bible reading–real Bible reading where you read the whole book, chapter by chapter and verse by verse. Genesis is indeed a great, great book–however you slice it.
I have also been reading the new Van Engen book where he attempts to “show readers how poetry is for everyone–and how it can reinvigorate our Christian faith.” Poetry is for everyone. I am looking forward to hearing him talk on Friday night at church.
I bought Poems for the Children’s Hour at an estate sale a few weeks ago and am enjoying paging through it. Printed in 1927, it is compiled with an eye for “every child’s experiences in family, nature, play, community, patriotic, and spiritual relationships” throughout the year. Do children still know the old clapping game…
If not, they should. I will pass it along to daughter #2 in the hopes that some day her children will get the reference in that old Billy Wilder film with Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe…
I was reminded on Sunday that my women’s Bible Study starts up again in a few weeks and I will be back to the Gospel of Matthew and Thursday mornings with the ladies and serious prayer time. This will be a good thing and I am looking forward to it.
If you have been asking yourself, ‘What’s wrong with the world?’, leave it to Alistair Begg to answer well.
And BYU runner Kenneth Rooks winning silver in the 3000m steeplechase was one of the most thrilling races ever. Rooks was the only American to make the men’s steeplechase final. He started the race in the middle of the pack of 16 runners but faded as far back as last place before coming on strong in the final two laps. By the time the bell was ringing to signify the start of the final lap, Rooks had surged into the lead. Ultimately, Soufiane El Bakkali, who won the gold at the Tokyo Olympics, was able to catch and pass him to claim the gold medal, but oh my goodness, Rooks was awesome. This is what the Olympics is all about.
Well, keep reading! Keep doing what you’re doing and keep the faith.
Today, a guest post from daughter #2, midwest returnee and proud prairie mom. We have officially been Illinois residents for six months, and to say I am happy here is an understatement. I could weep at the sight of all this corn. Miles and miles of green fields, with nary a high-rise apartment building in sight. I drive around with a smile plastered to my face!
One privilege of living driving-distance from my mother is that she has steadily supplied me with a lifetime of nostalgia in the form of plastic tubs she unearths from her basement each time we visit here or there. I mean it when I say I am so grateful for this “archival work,” as I have gone through countless photographs, scrapbooks, diaries, and other belongings from about age 8 or 9 onward. Because I am my mother’s daughter, I myself was prone to recording, saving, and preserving quite a special collection of things.
A few highlights…
“What? I can’t have layers?”
By all accounts — my own diaries, these family Christmas gift tags, notes and collages made by friends — I was extremely celebrity obsessed. I plastered images of the teen male-du-jour on everything, including academic notebooks. So special. The diaries, which began with the Mulan journal (that originally had a lock) and eventually evolved to simple spiral-bound notebooks, were filled with experiences I do recall vividly. Fifth grade was full of drama surrounding who got to record the homework hotline for our teacher, my scathing reviews of terrible outfits another girl wore, and a rotating catalog of crushes I had. (I was in a class full of boys, which was terrifying at first, but wound up being OK, apparently.)
Things did not change in the following decade. My high school journals also included class time drama, harsh commentary, and crushes. So much detail about the crushes. Like an embarrassing amount of focus on boys whom I never came close to dating.
All three of these pictures feel very “Susie”
I also read through a large amount of writing from these years, including stories I wrote with friends in notebooks we passed back and forth, and, of course, assignments for school. I re-read a fifteen-page book report gushing about East of Eden; the assigned length was five pages, about any book of your choosing. I found my files from the Summer Writing Institute for teens at the flyover university where my mother worked, and re-read four chapters of an extremely autobiographical novel I wrote about a group of high school girls. Hilariously, I had named all of the characters after my mom’s childhood friends. (Years later, I would transfer schools to that flyover university and be randomly assigned a dorm room with one of the other girls from the writing institute. The first thing she said when we met again was, “Oh my god! I loved that novel you wrote. Muffy and Jane and Harriet! How are they?”)
While it was a little soul crushing to remember how excluded I felt most of the time, and how desperately I dealt in the social currency of inside jokes, I’m glad to have taken this gander into the past. I do get the sense that I have always been supremely myself — and while I’ve certainly grown up, I haven’t really changed.
These tubs will go straight down to my own basement for continued perusal, and you can bet that the prairie girl archive starts now!
Today we toast the great English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, born on this day in 1809. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria’s reign. A number of phrases from Tennyson’s work have become commonplace in the English language, including “Nature, red in tooth and claw” (which I use all the time), “‘Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all”, “Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die”, “My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure”, “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”, “Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers”, and “The old order changeth, yielding place to new”. He is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Speaking of heroic hearts, aIthough I am not watching the Olympics and he is a professional, I was happy to hear that Scottie Scheffler won the Gold for men’s golf, coming from behind in a record-tying final round. He cried during the playing of our National Anthem.
“I would say first and foremost I’m proud of the country I’m from. I’m proud to be American. I got emotional the other night watching the gold medal ceremony for the women’s gymnastics. I take tremendous pride in coming over here and representing my country,” he said after his round.
Thank you, Scottie.
FYI it is also the birthday of Lucille Ball, Robert Mitchum, Ella Raines, and M. Night Shyamalan. So watch an old movie! And, as always, look out for bears!
How was your weekend? Daughter #1 and Mr. Smith and I had fun zipping up north for a short visit with the prairie girls who are always up for a good time. (We returned their pack-n-play crib which they left at my house and will need when they go on vacation.) We took walks…
and played fetch in the back yard…
Katie was very brave and Mr. Smith was a very good boy and they are edging their way toward being friends. She was thinking a lot about him after we left…
On Sunday the OM and I went to church and Sunday School which was about the use of the word Zion in the OT.
His foundation is in the holy mountains. 2 The Lord loves the gates of Zion More than all the dwellings of Jacob. 3 Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God! Selah
(Psalm 87:1-3)
This week our teacher was a church member who is a professor at St. Louis University and she is very learned. I felt like I was back in college. Our sermon was on Psalm 9. Our pastor always asks a question for “young worshippers” to help them stay focused. I will admit, it helps me too. This week the question was, “When we are in trouble, what is God for us?” Answer: a stronghold!
Savior, since of Zion’s city I through grace a member am, let the world deride or pity, I will glory in Thy name. Fading is the worldling’s pleasures, all his boasted pomp and show; solid joys and lasting treasures none but Zion’s children know.
–John Newton, 1779
Meanwhile the boy and his family returned from Hilton Head, all fit and tan. They went to the aquarium in Charleston on the way home…
and saw some sights…
Now that they are back and will be starting back to school soon, I am looking forward to getting back on our usual schedule of Sunday dinners etc. But it is hard to believe that the summer will soon be over.
dual personalities 