family | dual personalities

July 2, 2018

“Gave it my best and then I left it alone”*

by chuckofish

The tiger lilies are still blooming at home

How was your weekend? Mine was quite delightful, especially since daughter #1 was in town unexpectedly. She had to be in St. Louis for work on Friday so she stayed over Friday night. On Saturday we estate-saled, lunched out at our favorite lunch place (and my mother’s favorite), the Women’s Exchange, went to the Sign of the Arrow (needlepoint store) and generally did our old-lady thing. It was great. It was too darn hot to do anything outside, so we stayed inside and went through some stuff in the basement, looking for other stuff in the basement, which we never found.

That evening we got the OM to take us out to dinner at our local Mexican restaurant at the old-lady hour of 5:00 pm–the place to our surprise was hoppin’! I guess everyone in town wanted a margarita! In the evening we chilled and listened to 1990s country music.

In the morning, daughter #1 headed back to mid-MO bright and early and I set about doing what I had planned to do, i.e. clean the house, do laundry and change sheets in preparation for visitors during the week.

Daughter #2 called and told me all about her weekend with my friend Harriet in Norfolk, Virginia. She had so much fun visiting in March that she went back with DN!

Screen Shot 2018-07-01 at 10.28.45 AM.png Sunday was the first anniversary of her marriage to DN. We reminisced a little and were grateful that it wasn’t as hot last year as it is this year!

Screen Shot 2017-07-29 at 8.54.30 AM.png The wee babes came over on Sunday night and messed up a lot of what I had put right during the day. But, truly, life is too short to care about that.

Screen Shot 2018-07-01 at 9.51.22 PM.png They weren’t terribly interested in the like-new, handmade Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls I bought at an estate sale on Saturday.

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But that’s okay too.

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Lottie liked her cherry hat and would have worn it all night if the wee laddie hadn’t insisted on trying it on. (He took it right off.) We go with the flow.

So remember, it’s a great day to be alive…Have a good one!

*Travis Tritt

6 Comments

June 29, 2018

“Stick with me baby, I’m the guy that you came in with”*

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of one of my favorites: Frank Loesser (June 29, 1910 – July 28, 1969) who wrote, among a lot of other things, the lyrics and music to Guys and Dolls. Over his career, he won four Tonys, a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and an Academy Award–all richly deserved.

Loesser, we are told, was one of those guys who, when four years old, could play any tune on the piano by ear (he never had a lesson). In WWII he joined the Air Force and wrote “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.” What a guy.

If I hadn’t just watched Guys and Dolls (1955) recently, I would watch it tonight in his honor. Instead I may watch Destry Rides Again (1939) in which Marlene Dietrich sings the Loesser classic “See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have.”

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Speaking of westerns, Loesser also wrote the classic “Jingle, Jangle, Jingle” as in “I’ve got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle/ as I go riding merrily along/And they sing, oh, ain’t you glad you’re single?/And that song ain’t so very far from wrong.” I have known the song forever, but never knew who wrote it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0ac5AVosug

So a toast to Frank Loesser tonight! The weekend is almost here. I have no big plans beyond getting ready for the 4th of July holiday when we have guests arriving. And hopefully those wee babes will toddle over on Sunday night.

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Plus: This is a good one from one of my favorite female (Episcopal) clergypersons.

I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

–Ephesians 3:14–21

*”Luck Be a Lady Tonight” by Frank Loesser

2 Comments

June 28, 2018

“For love of unforgotten times”*

by chuckofish

chris:mother 1951.jpeg

oh antic God

return to me

my mother in her thirties

leaned across the front porch

the huge pillow of her breasts

pressing against the rail

summoning me in for bed.

I am almost the dead woman’s age times two.

I can barely recall her song

the scent of her hands

though her wild hair scratches my dreams

at night. return to me, oh Lord of then

and now, my mother’s calling,

her young voice humming my name.

–Lucille Clifton

June 26 was the 30th anniversary of our mother’s death. As a day it doesn’t mean that much to me, because I think of her every day.

I see her in me and in my children and in other people. I read her books and wear her jewelry. I sometimes get out her dishes and use them. I watch movies that we watched together. I am reminded of what she said and thought about things.

I went to the memorial service of a 96-year old friend the other day. Her adult granddaughter spoke lovingly about her and related how when she was a child, she would visit her grandparents in the summer. She would go to the grocery store with her grandmother, who would drive with her hand on her granddaughter’s leg. I thought of my mother and of myself, who did the same thing (and still do sometimes!) with our children–that wordless pat of affection saying, I’m so happy you are here with me.

“We ourselves shall be loved for awhile and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

–Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

*Robert Louis Stevenson, from “To My Mother”

4 Comments

June 25, 2018

“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, and his mercy endures for ever.”*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? After a raging thunderstorm of a Friday afternoon we had a lovely Saturday with temperatures in the 70s! I had a great visit with my old friend Harriet–such a treat!–and daughter #1 breezed into town as well.

We buzzed around town hitting a couple of estate sales where I rescued a needlepoint pillow (see strawberries) and got a few books and a floor lamp. We dropped in on the boy who was working at his store.

Screen Shot 2018-06-24 at 1.38.25 PM.png We had lunch and walked around our hometown. She got the oil changed in her car and bought some great chinoiserie fabric to recover a chair. Then the wee babes came over on Saturday night and we reconnected with them. It had been awhile!

The wee laddie said hello to the handles on the highboy.

Little Miss Lottie said hello to Aunt Susie and Uncle Nate (in abstentia)…

…and gave Aunt Susie a kiss

The wee laddie wears an eye patch for a few hours a day.

I have 11 teeth!

Busy walking the circuit

After daughter #1 left on Sunday afternoon to go back to mid-MO, I got some laundry and housework done and talked to daughter #2, who is on the home stretch to her oral defense of her PhD thesis. You go, girl! The summer is zooming by.

Now it is back to the salt mine. Have a good week!

*Psalm 107:1

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June 22, 2018

“A man never gets so old, that he forgets how it was being a little boy.”*

by chuckofish

The wee babes and their parents are back in town after a fun-filled vacay in Florida where they visited their other grandparents. The boy went to DisneyWorld, which is the happy place of his wife and in-law family, for the first time. He even wore a special shirt during the 14-hour day-trip. When in Rome…

The boy deserves a party, but he has to work all weekend at his store, so we will not be able to get together as I had hoped for a belated Father’s Day celebration. Sigh. Well, we’ll bring him some Chik-fil-A for lunch as a treat.

Funnily enough, now that summer is officially here, the temperature is dropping and we are in for some rain. Well, that’s flyover weather for you!

Screen Shot 2018-06-21 at 12.19.17 PM Daughter #1 is coming home for the weekend for a little R&R (and to see the wee babes). Plus, my oldest BFF is in town so we are getting together this afternoon for Episcopal souffle and a good old gab-fest.

I have nothing to complain about. I mean, look at the great bookmark daughter #2 sent me after she and DN visited Appomattox!

Perfect! Have a great weekend!

*Ward Cleaver

7 Comments

June 18, 2018

“See! the streams of living waters, springing from eternal love”*

by chuckofish

It’s tiger lily time in flyover country. They are everywhere! I do love these heat-loving beauties. And, boy, this weekend was a hot one!

I went to three estate sales (no luck) and did a little shopping of the home-store variety. I went to church. Other than that, it was strictly inside for me this weekend: I yakked on the phone and worked on some inside projects. It warmed my heart that daughter #1 in Mid-MO went estate-saleing and was more successful than I.

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I finished reading The Bondwoman’s Narrative, a 19th century novel by Hannah Craft and possibly the first novel written by an African-American woman. (Daughter #2 had left it at home for me.) In 2013 Crafts’ identity was documented as Hannah Bond, an enslaved African-American woman on the plantation of John Wheeler and his wife Ellen in Murfreeboro, North Carolina. Bond served there as a lady’s maid to Ellen Wheeler, and escaped about 1857, settling finally in New Jersey. Here’s a review of this very interesting and well-written book by the great Hilary Mantel in the London Review of Books.

I should mention that yesterday, besides being Father’s Day, was also Bunker Hill Day, which commemorates the battle of Bunker Hill on June 17. It is also the birthday of our maternal grandfather, who was always known as Bunker because he was born on Bunker Hill Day in 1900.

Here’s an appropriate word from old Henry David Thoreau in honor of Bunker:

The fishermen sit by their damp fire of rotten pine wood, so wet and chilly that even smoke in their eyes is a kind of comfort. There they sit, ever and anon scanning their reels to see if any have fallen, and, if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, i.e. a wilder experience than the town affords.

(December 26, 1856)

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Today is a busy day for me and I have to pick up the wee babes and their parents at the airport tonight at 9:00 pm–way past my bedtime!

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All in a day’s work.

Have a good one.

*Hymn 522, John Newton; the painting is by N.C. Wyeth, “Thoreau Fishing”

5 Comments

June 5, 2018

Postcards from Nashville

by chuckofish

Nashville. as you know, is a very swinging place and always fun to visit. We stayed downtown this weekend so we could walk everywhere.

Friday afternoon we staked out good seats at a bar in sight of the river and people watched. We were amazed by the huge amount of bachelorette parties, i.e. groups of young women in matching tank tops sporting some cute bachelorette-themed saying, short shorts and cowboy boots. Ahem. (There were also large groups of young men–not wearing matching shirts.) The main attraction looked alarmingly like someone we know:

From there we moved on to the Wildhorse Saloon, which although huge, is not so loud and intense.

The crowd is more middle-aged and the line-dancing lessons are a spectacle in themselves.

The next day we walked around town and over the river for a good view of the city.

We checked out the Johnny Cash Museum and were very impressed.

We had lunch at the Ryman…

…and generally had a lot of fun reacquainting ourselves with Music City. Eventually we had to go back to our hotel to get gussied up for the wedding.

We did not look like this for long, as it was pretty warm in the airplane hangar in hipster East Nashville where the wedding reception was held.

Don’t worry, we stayed hydrated.

The parents of the groom had rented an RV, which was parked out back to be used by a select few to cool off, which we did.

Despite the heat, it was so much fun! And the bride and groom were lovely…

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Thankfully, the OM did not burn down the house, but held the fort while we were gone and rested up. We made it home in time to enjoy our usual Sunday night barbecue with the wee babes and their parents.

Little Miss Lottie is so focused! She loves her vintage figures…

The wee laddie not so much…he is a wind-up toy!

Well, I definitely needed a day to recover, but no way, José!

Have a good week!

6 Comments

May 29, 2018

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

The wee laddie likes to be read to, but he also likes to turn the page (mostly likes to turn the page) and so it is not easy to read a book to him fast enough. We will persevere. Lottie likes to be read to also. If they are playing on the floor and I start reading aloud, they will stop what they are doing and come over and climb up on the sofa and listen. Not for too long, if I don’t turn the pages fast enough, but for a little while. This is a good thing.

I was talking to one of my students the other day, one who graduated from our alma mater 10 years ahead of me (and so is in her 70s). We were talking about her parents who are both 96 and about to celebrate their 75 wedding anniversary! I’m not sure how we got on the subject, but she was telling me about how her father was a great one for reading to his three children when they were growing up. He read to them until they were practically teenagers and always in the dialect/accent of the character. They all loved it. He is still reading aloud, all these years later, in our Shakespeare class. She admitted that he practices at home. I can hear him sometimes through the wall of my office and it warms my heart.

The only time I read aloud these days (except occasionally to the wee babes) is in church. This past Sunday, because it was the long holiday weekend I suppose, attendance was spotty. In fact, one of the assigned lay readers did not show up! So after a pregnant pause in the service, I jumped up and headed to the lectern to read, unrehearsed, from the letter of Paul to the Romans:

So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— ¹³for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. ¹⁵For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (8: 12-17)

How I do love old St. Paul and all his commas! I did all right and 90-year old Shirley told me after the service that I had made a good catch.

Never stop reading!

3 Comments

May 25, 2018

“Well, come see a fat old man some time!”*

by chuckofish

I am so ready for a three-day weekend! Quelle busy week leading up to it, of course. Phew.

Daughter #1 stopped at home last night on her way to Indianapolis and a fun reunion with her college pals. She will stop in on the way back on Monday. My other plans include babysitting for the wee babes for a few hours on Saturday (probably by myself, since the OM is under the weather)…

and then recovering from that activity by binge-watching John Wayne movies.

Screen Shot 2018-05-24 at 11.35.03 AM.png It is the Duke’s birthday tomorrow, so TCM is showing a whole bunch of his WWII movies:

Screen Shot 2018-05-23 at 8.49.25 AM.png I also have plenty of my own, thank you, so I can pick and choose.

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Sounds like a mighty good plan to me.

Have a good weekend!

[My DP is in England visiting her in-laws for a few weeks, so we won’t be hearing from her until she returns stateside.]

*Rooster Cogburn, True Grit (1969)

4 Comments

May 21, 2018

“Come down, O Love divine, seek thou this soul of mine”*

by chuckofish

On Saturday I got up early and headed to Queeny Park for the March of Dimes March for Babies walk.

By the end of the morning little Lottiebelle was over it…

but the wee laddie was raring to go.

I was done in myself, but found the energy to hit three estate sales afterwards. I got a couple of old silver frames.

The rest of the day I spent puttering around and catching up with daughter #2 on the phone. We went out to dinner with old friends and gabbed away, and were home before cool people even head out on a Saturday night. I fell asleep watching an old movie.

It was Pentecost on Sunday, so the service was longer than usual and jazzed up with a brass quartet, plus we also recognized the high school/college graduates and Sunday School teachers, renewed our baptismal vows and heard all about the 18th century chasuble that our rector was wearing. The man who was the boy’s small group leader when he was active in K-Life back in middle school and who is now a chaplain at the Episcopal City Mission talked at the adult forum and made an announcement in church. It was nice to catch up with him after the service. He is married now and has four kids under the age of 10. Time flies.

After church I returned to one of the estate sales to check out what was left and half price. The dudes who direct the traffic at these particular sales, helped me wedge my Mini into a tiny spot right in front after they removed the cones for me. It was raining and I was grateful that chivalry is not dead. Plus I found a couple of things to put away for gifts. Score.

The wee babes and their parents came over as usual on Sunday night, so it was a bonus weekend for me, getting to see them twice.