Come, holy Comforter
by chuckofish
…thy sacred witness bear in this glad hour:
thou, who almighty art, now rule in every heart,
and n’er from us depart,
Spirit of power
(Hymn #365)
I got a lot done at home this weekend. And you know, after such a busy week at work, it was nice to stay home and vacuum and put things away and gab on the phone. After church, I went to two estate sales (batting zero) and returned something at the mall.
We watched My Darling Clementine (1947) on Friday night
(Henry Fonda was never better and is still the best Wyatt Earp in movies.)
and Run Silent, Run Deep (1958) on Saturday night.
Nobody says, “Dive! Dive!” better than Clark Gable.
I finished re-reading The Searchers by Alan Le May, poked around in the Memoirs of William Tecumseh Sherman, and started Glass Houses by Louise Penny.
The wee babes came over for dinner Sunday night. We hadn’t seen them in over two weeks!
As you can see, they were both obsessed with this antique chair, and vied to sit in it all night. After two days in pre-school/daycare, they are reading fluently.
All’s well in the world.
We always knew she was a smart cookie, but now it’s official. Champagne corks were popping in Maryland and will pop again next week when she and DN visit us in our flyover town.
Normally I would collapse after such a week, but I have to get ready to head out on Sunday morning (bright and early) to fly to Colorado. Zut alors! I am not complaining. I am blessed to be busy doing things that I love with friends and family.
are heading back to Indiana this morning and it is back to the salt mine pour moi. I hope it is a quiet day!
However you want to spend the 4th of July, I’ll take my cue from those three American flyers in the German prisoner of war camp (surrounded by British officers) in The Great Escape (1962)…waving the flag, playing loud music and sipping some moonshine. (“WOW!”)
We hope this is a “big year” for him, at least in the birding sense. Come see a Pied-billed grebe or a Marbled godwit sometime! We have them in Missouri, you know. After all, we live on the Mississippi flyway.
Today we toast John Singleton Copley (July 3, 1738 – September 9, 1815) on his birthday. Copley was was an American painter, active in both colonial America and England. He was famous for his portraits, but the above painting–Watson and the Shark (1778)–traumatized me as a child. It is still scary!
I also saw George M! with Joel Grey at the Muny Opera back in 1970 when it was touring.
I wonder if kids today have ever heard of George M. Cohan or heard any of his songs. I grew up with them. “Over there! Over there!/Send the word, send the word over there/That the Yanks are coming/ The Yanks are coming…” I guess Americans lost their enthusiasm for that sentiment somewhere in the 1960s. Oh well.
June was Leslie Howard and July is Steve McQueen. Have I been a good girl or what? Set your DVRs for Thursdays! By the way, the OM and I watched The Towering Inferno (1974) the other night–possibly one of the worst movies ever–but it was worth the 165-minute investment of time to see Steve McQueen…
…and Paul Newman.
The horrible 1970s sets and costumes were amusing as well. Egad, 1974 was the pits.
Today is also the start of the Dog Days of summer according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. To the Greeks and Romans, the “dog days” occurred around the day when Sirius appeared to rise just before the sun, in late July. They referred to these days as the hottest time of the year, a period that could bring fever, or even catastrophe.
dual personalities 