dual personalities

Category: family

August 13, 2019

Small things

by chuckofish

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I did not get to see the wee babes this weekend, but I did see pictures of their visit to the National Museum of Transportation where they seemed to have had a super fun time. This museum has come a long way since we used to visit it as children. They even have a little train you can ride on, like at the zoo.

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I hope they saw the…

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…I can only imagine that the wee laddie would lose his mind over this treasure!

Meanwhile the OM and I had a quiet weekend at home. We only ventured out to take a drive through Lone Elk Park where we saw a raccoon family, a couple of wild turkeys and some buffalo taking a siesta. It was pretty chill there.

“Again I resume the long
lesson: how small a thing
can be pleasing, how little
in this hard world it takes
to satisfy the mind
and bring it to its rest.”
― Wendell Berry, Sabbaths 

It is Tuesday now. Put down your phone and look up. Enjoy the small things. None of them are on a computer screen.

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August 2, 2019

“What ho, Tashtego!”

by chuckofish

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Where did the week go? Daughter #2 and I went to work every day and got things done until about 1:00 and then went home and collapsed. This is my new normal. She made tasty dinners hoping I would eat them and I mostly did. We watched Lonesome Dove and Love With the Proper Stranger (1963).

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This movie was better than I remembered!

But we didn’t get much else done and that’s okay. DN arrives today while we are at chemo…

Screen Shot 2019-08-01 at 10.07.50 PM.png…and we will put him to work, busting up chifforobes etc. Daughter #1 rolls into town later this afternoon, and then we will all go into Melville party mode for the big day tomorrow.

Have a great weekend! Don’t forget to toast Herman Melville at least once!

PSA: Just a reminder that August is the month for TCM Summer Under the Stars, wherein each day of the month is devoted to a full 24 hours of films featuring a single outstanding actor or actress. Returning favorites include June Allyson, Fred Astaire, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, Kirk Douglas, Irene Dunne, Errol Flynn, Henry Fonda, Ava Gardner, Susan Hayward, Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, Red Skelton, Ann Sothern and James Stewart.

Check out the full schedule here and start setting your DVR.

And please say a little prayer for the wee laddie who is having another corrective surgery on his eye this morning. 🙏🙏🙏

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3 Comments
July 30, 2019

“Surely all this is not without meaning.”*

by chuckofish

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The wee babes came over yesterday and learned some new words.

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Aunt Susie reads “Moby-Dick”–can you say harpoon?

Yes, we are in the big build up to Herman Melville’s 200th birthday/birthday bash at the end of the week. So, of course, we had to get the wee babes in the act.

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Lottie says, “Is there a sea princess in this book?”

Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals–morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire–by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be–what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life,–all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick? Who does not feel the irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow of a seventy-four can stand still? For one, I gave myself up to the abandonment of the time and the place; but while yet all a-rush to encounter the whale, could see naught in that brute but the deadliest ill.

*Herman Melville

2 Comments
July 23, 2019

Let it rain, rain down on me*

by chuckofish

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I thought I was taller than you…

Well, your dual personalities had a lot of fun hanging out, not doing much, but just being together. And that’s what it’s all about, right?

My sister got to hang out with the wee babes, who are admittedly more fun than a barrel of monkeys…

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Lottie go to the beach?

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Come in the water, Wheeler! It feels great!

…and she went estate sale-ing with daughter #1 and to lunch at the Women’s Exchange, but the rest of the time, we were pretty mellow. And now I miss her. Sigh.

But things are bubbling over at work and daughter #2 arrives on Thursday, so dull  moments do not accrue.

“No stars gleam as brightly as those which glisten in the polar sky. No water tastes so sweet as that which springs amid the desert sand. And no faith is so precious as that which lives and triumphs through adversity. Tested faith brings experience. You would never have believed your own weakness had you not needed to pass through trials. And you would never have known God’s strength had His strength not been needed to carry you through.”
― Charles H. Spurgeon

Have a good Tuesday!

*Crowder

4 Comments
July 19, 2019

Hanging out

by chuckofish

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Which DP is that? It must be “Great-Aunt Sarah”!

Well, the dual personalities have been hanging out and gabbing away for several days now…

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…talking over the events and people of our shared lives. We haven’t dined out or visited any points of interest or gone shopping or anything.

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And now, on to another round of chemo.

The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God’s things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak — even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments when you cannot believe there is a God who speaks at all anywhere. He speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our selves and of our own footsore and sacred journeys. We cannot live our lives constantly looking back, listening back, lest we be turned to pillars of longing and regret, but to live without listening at all is to live deaf to the fullness of the music. Sometimes we avoid listening for fear of what we may hear, sometimes for fear that we may hear nothing at all but the empty rattle of our own feet on the pavement. But be not affeard, says Caliban, nor is he the only one to say it. “Be not afraid,” says another, “for lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” He says he is with us on our journeys. He says he has been with us since each of our journeys began. Listen for him. Listen to the sweet and bitter airs of your present and your past for the sound of him.

–Frederick Buechner, from The Sacred Journey 

3 Comments
July 17, 2019

Ride, boldly, ride*

by chuckofish

My dear DP is here now in flyover country to spend some time with me. It’s not like we are having “super fun” exactly, but we are having quality one-on-one time like we haven’t had in years and years. That is a great blessing.

She is also giving some respite to the OM who has been forced by our present circumstances to shoulder more than his usual burden of responsibilities. [Plus, in the last few weeks the air conditioning went out, the garage door needed adjusting and now the dryer vent has come undone for the umpteenth time and we have had to call in the auxiliary troops again.] C’est la vie. He reminds me sometimes of Arthur Hunnicutt trudging off to get Croton Oil or gunpowder or soap in El Dorado (1967) for the beleaguered gang in the sheriff’s office.

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But he’s been great and I am grateful. And today is the OM’s birthday! I’m afraid it got a little lost in the shuffle, although daughter #1 sent him a card…

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…and then daughter #2 sent him the same card! There will be no big party to celebrate, but maybe we’ll watch Bullitt (1968) and get Chik-fil-A. I could maybe go for that too.

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The wee babes don’t get back into town until tonight, and they are coming over tomorrow 🎉🎉, so perhaps there will be cake and a few presents. It’s always a party when they come over!

In the meantime, here are some pics from their visit to Sarasota.

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Aren’t they getting so grown up?

L’Chaim to the OM tonight!

*Edgar Allan Poe

3 Comments
July 12, 2019

What’s playing at the Roxie?

by chuckofish

Happy Friday! It has been a long week back at work and I am looking forward to not doing a lot this weekend.

The wee babes are in Florida with their parents where the wee laddie will be sporting the latest in toddler fashion–a “tractor hat” which I knew would hit the sartorial sweet spot for the boy who loves all things tractor.

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I’ll be trying to get the house ready for a visit from my DP next week.

Maybe I’ll catch up on some more 1939 movies. Last week I watched Only Angels Have Wings (1939) which was very good. I have been on a bit of a Cary Grant kick recently…

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…and I’m thinking it may be time for Gunga Din (1939)…Tonight TCM is showing this lineup of 1939 movies:

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Anyway, however you slice it, the weekend is nearly here! Huzzah!

3 Comments
July 5, 2019

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave

by chuckofish

I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July and are enjoying a day off today. The wee babes came over and ran us ragged.Screen Shot 2019-07-05 at 6.08.20 AM.pngIMG_0002.jpegWe went through our repertoire pretty fast and had to bring out the big guns, i.e. our vintage copy of Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, which is the wee laddie’s absolute favorite.IMG_0273.jpegWe also brought out the Big Box of Beanie Babies and, boy, was that ever popular. We went through it identifying each and every Beanie Baby. They have amazing recall. Then the wee babes enjoyed getting in and out of the box themselves. IMG_0254.jpegThey also had fun running wild in our yard. The energy of these wee babes is impressive.IMG_0243.jpegBy the time it was time to watch fireworks, they were finally pretty done in, so they went home and we collapsed.

Today daughter #1 and I will be taking it easy. Second round of chemo…and then home again, home again jiggety jig.

Also, note that every Friday in July TCM will show an all-day marathon of movies from the “Golden Year 1939”. Today’s movies are:

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3 Comments
July 3, 2019

“I haven’t lost my temper in 40 years”*

by chuckofish

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Tomorrow is the 4th of July–let’s whoop it up some!

In the morning TCM is playing some great John Wayne movies…

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…and that night they’re showing some appropriate musicals…

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We will probably be taking it pretty easy here in our flyover neighborhood. We won’t be attending Fair St. Louis or anything big like that. (We’ll watch the parade on TV.) But the OM will fire up the barbecue and the wee babes will come over for awhile. (They have new outfits.)

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We’ll dig out the sparklers and bang some pots and pans. Maybe we’ll play some patriotic music…

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And let’s all say a prayer:

Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for Independence Day, BCP)

There are a lot of movies with 4th of July scenes, but lists almost always forget the classic finale of McClintock! (1963) wherein John Wayne spanks Maureen O’Hara and everyone cheers. Here’s another great scene featuring our quintessential American hero.

Have a good one. Make good choices.

*John Wayne in McClintock! (1963)

2 Comments
June 28, 2019

Catching up

by chuckofish

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This article came as no surprise to me– Okay, “brown furniture” may be dead in our culture, which apparently has lost interest in its history. C’mon, I have been saying for years that real antiques go for a song at auction and that it is a sure bet you can find a nice dining room table and chairs for a $100 at an estate sale. But there are still plenty of people out there who care about their pasts and their family histories, who save “stuff” and refuse to purge everything, who don’t give a hoot about trends. Take heart and hold on. And take advantage of a buyer’s market, I say.

David Powlinson, with whom I had very recently become acquainted through his writing, died peacefully at his home in Pennsylvania on Friday, June 7, 2019, after suffering from pancreatic cancer. He was 69. Of course, there was no mention in the NYTimes–evangelicals (even Harvard-educated ones) are beneath notice–but I recommend you follow up with him and find out more. 

You would think that being home with a lot of spare time on my hands, I might have watched some good new movies and/or television shows. Alas, I cannot report that that is the case. Even with Amazon Prime etc, it is kind of a wasteland out there. I am sticking to the tried and true “comfort” variety of entertainment and that is working for me.

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I am trying to read more, but am reverting to some old favorites.

“Go and be as the butterfly!”
Dooley grinned. “You’ve said that as long as I can remember. I’m not pulling up what it means.”
It was what God had said to him, a small-town clergyman, another lifetime a go, and what he had tried and was still trying to do.
“I think it means to go unfettered by cares, by the infernal bondage of the mortal. Go with a light heart, trusting God and giving thanks. Go and gather unto yourselves so you can pour out to others.”
He took a deep breath. “Go without looking back.”
― Jan Karon, To Be Where You Are 

The boy is heading out to a bachelor party on the west coast today. I hope he has fun. I have enjoyed spending more time with him than usual over the past few weeks, as he frequently stops by to see me on his way to work and “coach” me a little.

Hopefully the wee babes will come over for a visit this weekend. They have been making the most of their summer…

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…and keeping cool. Hard to believe we are halfway through the year!

Enjoy your Friday and bon weekend!

6 Comments