dual personalities

Category: family

February 29, 2016

Tell old pharoah

by chuckofish

Amaryllis

The Old Testament reading on Sunday was about God appearing to Moses in the form of a Burning Bush (Exodus 3:1-15). I suppose that was why we sang Go Down, Moses as our communion hymn. We gave it our best shot tried, but Episcopalians plus negro spirituals equals truly awkward. We just can’t swing it, literally.

We had a lovely, balmy weekend and I tried to get out and about, but was still recovering from my cough/cold/whatever. I re-organized a large cupboard filled with an assortment of dishes, serving pieces, silver, holiday decorations, cleaning supplies, ephemera, etcetera. This turned into quite a job as you can imagine, but I got it all sorted out, cleaned and put away. I actually threw away very little (typical).

Since officially giving up on Humboldt’s Gift, I perused several bookshelves at home and picked out several possible books to read. I settled on The Proper Bostonian by Cleveland Amory, which I had picked up some time ago at an estate sale. It proved to be very enjoyable  and full of information. Published in 1947, it “is as humorous and entertaining as anything that could be written about the Boston Brahmins–the Cabots, Lodges, Lowells, Adamses and others that make Boston a synonym for staidness and sobriety.” (Chicago Tribune) Now there’s a qualified recommendation for you! I am learning all about Boston’s First Families and the foibles of the “Proper Boston lady” and the “Proper Boston gentleman.”

This is particularly interesting to me as our maternal grandmother was a Sargent  after all and lived on Clarendon Street in Back Bay for years. She was, indeed, a “Proper Boston lady.”

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When our parents gave their third child the middle name ‘Sargent,’ our grandmother’s response was  not, “Oh, how nice,” but “Well, finally.”

Well, more on this later, because it is Monday and the bell tolleth for me. Have a good week!

P.S. I watched part of the Oscars–why? Why did they keep playing Que Sera Sera? It was a strange show. But I didn’t watch the whole thing. I went to bed. Give me some credit.

(The OM took the photo of the amaryllis.)

3 Comments
February 18, 2016

Don’t eat the daisies

by chuckofish

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From snow on Sunday to gray skies and frosty winds earlier in the week to spring-like weather today, we are experiencing typical flyover weather patterns.

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Our throwback photos remind us of those trips in bygone days to the Botanical Gardens when spring was in the air, but we still had to bundle up in winter coats.

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And remember: No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.

Have a zen throwback Thursday!

6 Comments
February 15, 2016

Meet, right and our bounden duty

by chuckofish

Sunday was the first Sunday in Lent so we had the Great Litany at the beginning of our service–you know, that’s the one where we implore Christ to preserve us from evil and wickedness, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil, and from everlasting damnation, etc, etc, etc.

We also switch to Rite I in our church so we go back to “and with thy spirit” and “we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost feed us, in these holy mysteries.” Of course, I am one of only a handful of people that probably enjoys this, but oh well, c’est la vie.

It snowed Sunday morning, so a lot of people stayed home, and I might have myself but for the fact that I was reading. It was a good reading too: Romans 10:8b–13

The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); 9 because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved.11 The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him. 13 For, “every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”

After church, I had to go to the grocery store to pick up the cake for the baby shower I was co-hosting with Becky. The driving was worse than ever, but I got the cake and made it home. Then the OM drove me over to the baby shower and dropped me off with all my stuff. It was a fun party and the mama-to-be received a lot of presents.

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Daughter #1 sent her a present from NYC and it was a big hit.

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Ah, sunrise, sunset. And now it is Monday and I don’t have Presidents Day off. Hats off anyway to Washington and Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes

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and cousin Lyss

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et al. Huzzah.

3 Comments
February 4, 2016

Throwback Thursday

by chuckofish

Chris and Tom

Here is a photo of our handsome older brother (on the right) with his dreamy best bud Tom at our parent’s home back in 1980. Written on the back of the snapshot is Oct. 18, 1980 which means it was taken on the evening following the wedding of the OM and yours truly. Everyone was relaxing and the bride and groom had left the scene.

Good times. I wonder what they were playing?

P.S. The BB (big brother) is the same age here as the boy is today.

3 Comments
January 26, 2016

Cute cat pics

by chuckofish

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I took this picture of Ollie (one of the boy’s cats) a couple of weeks ago.  He and daughter #3 have three (yes, three) cats. They are cat people.

We had a cat once. His name was Marcellus, but we called him Cat.

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He doesn’t look so tough in this photo, but he was a badass.

We got him because we were having an issue with mice at our old house. He took care of things swiftly and efficiently. He was a born killer. That is what cats do.

He also protected our home and children. He would sit up in the branches of a tree that overlooked our driveway and survey his territory.

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Once a wayward black lab came trotting up the driveway while the kids (and our dog) played merrily inside the fenced yard. The cat waited until the dog was directly underneath him and then pounced on him from the tree limb. The poor dog never knew what hit him. Cat chased him away.

Once Cat brought home our corgi, who had gotten out. The dog, although cute, was no Lassie. I’m not sure he would have found his way home on his own. But before he had a chance to get really lost, the cat led him home. The cat and the dog got along fine, but there never was any question who was in charge.

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As it turned out, I am quite allergic to cats and so we have never gotten another to replace our original Cat.

But then, he was kind of irreplaceable.

And this made me smile.

2 Comments
January 25, 2016

“Woman, I am the calvary”*

by chuckofish

So I spent most of the weekend inside, in solidarity with daughters # 1 and 2, who really were stuck inside their east coast apartments because of all the snow.

Although I guess daughter #2 wasn’t stuck inside all weekend.

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We had no snow besides the old stuff from our mid-week event.

Screen Shot 2016-01-24 at 3.53.19 PMThe boy came over to show us his new hockey skates.

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And we watched Furious 7 again and thoroughly enjoyed all its lovely ridiculousness.

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The OM made shepherd’s pie.

Not a bad weekend, all things considered.

Have a good week!

*Hobbs in Furious 7.

6 Comments
January 19, 2016

Happy Birthday, Mary, Dolly and Buffy

by chuckofish

Susanne and Mary

Our mother and her older sister Susanne, circa 1930

Ah, it is January 19th once again. My mother would be turning 90! Dolly Parton is turning 70! And Buffy Summers remains a youthful fictional character.

In the above picture our Aunt Susanne is two years older (and so much taller!) than our mother. She has a hankie and bracelets. Mary looks as if she has just been told to “Quit it!” by Susanne who probably squeezed her hand in a mean way. Susanne looks tense and my mother looks a little sad.

Growing up, we heard a lot of stories about our  mother’s perfect older sister.  Although poised and beautiful, she was also very shy. Once when she left her umbrella on the bus, she made Mary go and stand at the bus stop and ask every bus driver on every bus that stopped if they had found Susanne’s umbrella. She was too shy to do it herself and too afraid to tell her mother she had lost it. We always were amazed that she could make our mother do something like that. But she could. She probably threatened to tell on her or something. Or maybe Mary was just used to doing things for her older sister.

Not to give you the wrong idea. My mother was devoted to Susanne and loved her very much. When she visited her in the summer of 1984, they would stay up until four in the morning talking. I think she was a little shocked by her older sister’s lifestyle. She had been divorced for ten years by then and had a boyfriend. She drank Scotch and stayed up late talking. She did what she damn well pleased.

When my mother was dying, it was Susanne she liked to talk to best. “She understood,” she said.

Sisters. There is no friend like a sister, right?

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And there is no one like Dolly. Of course, I’ll be toasting my dear mother tonight, along with wonderful Dolly and Buffy. And while I’m at it, I’ll toast Susanne and sisters everywhere.

5 Comments
January 18, 2016

Speaking of mothers

by chuckofish

Middlebury skiers

It was snowing and very cold when I woke up on Sunday morning, but I had to get up and go to church because I was reading the second lesson. Luckily it was a good passage: I Corinthians 12:1-11–the one about there being varieties of gifts, but one Spirit.

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

It is a good reminder to think about what our gifts are and to use them appropriately.

The Gospel was about the wedding in Cana when Jesus uses a tone with his mother, but then does what she asks him.

The Marriage at Cana by Giotto

The Marriage at Cana by Giotto

Sounds familiar, all you mothers of sons, right?

It is interesting to note that Mary at this early point thinks Jesus can do something about the fact that the wedding party has run out of wine… Well, lots of food for thought.

Speaking of mothers, I bought a frame at an estate sale on Saturday which enabled me to put these three pictures together:

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Mary Hough (great-great grandmother), Anna Hough Carnahan (great-grandmother) and Catherine Carnahan Cameron (grandmother). Pretty cool, eh?

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I have today off for Martin Luther King’s birthday–how ’bout you?

*The top photo is of some Middlebury College skiers in the 1940s. Is that my mother, the third from the right?

3 Comments
January 4, 2016

“It’s alright, Ma”*

by chuckofish

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Well, the holidays are officially over.

It was a busy long weekend. First I took down the little tree.

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Then the mantle.

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Then I moved on to the big tree.

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Soon all that was left was a pile of pine needles, some of which will still be around next year when we put up the next tree.

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In between we celebrated the New Year with friends and had the boy and daughter #3 over for dinner on New Year’s Day. We watched 3 Godfathers (1947), my favorite movie about the three wisemen, with them.

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I also watched Bridge of Spies (2015)–pretty average–and A Walk In the Woods (2015)–pretty disappointing.  I was hoping it would cheer me up, but considering it is based on a book by Bill Bryson, it was remarkably devoid of humor. Furthermore, Robert Redford is way too old and tired looking to play Bill Bryson, who wrote the book when he was 47. Redford is 79 and, despite what he may think, he looks it. His boyishly cut, dyed red hair looks ridiculous. Nick Nolte looks every one of his 74 years and more. Indeed, he appears to be at death’s door and like he wouldn’t make it 100 yards on the Appalachian Trail in real life. Cleary their backpacks were filled with bubble wrap.

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There was a lot of great scenery, which I appreciated, and the music featured songs by the band Lord Huron. (My dual personality gave me one of their CDs for Christmas and I had coincidentally been listening to it a lot over the weekend during my clean up efforts. BTW the CD is really good.) But, boy, it could have been so much better if it had been cast differently.

Anyway, I am now ready to face the new year at work today. The holidays were great fun, and I will miss my girls. But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only.

*Bob Dylan. (Yes, I would have spelled it “all right”…)

5 Comments
December 28, 2015

Only Noah saw it coming

by chuckofish

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Ugh. It has been raining for two solid days. Intense puddling.

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And face masking.

Rainiest December on record. Rainiest year on record.

Daughter #1 is on her way back to NYC. Daughter #2 heads back tomorrow.

Onward and upward.

2 Comments