gratitude | dual personalities

November 22, 2017

Come, ye thankful people, come

by chuckofish

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Today I am taking a half day at work, followed by a 4-day weekend. Huzzah.

My nephew Tim is driving in today from Crawfordsville, Indiana, and so is daughter #1 from Columbia. I will be in the kitchen cooking–terra incognita, for sure. But maybe we will have a dance party.

8f6180883df0ad438082a92665a38151--vintage-thanksgiving-thanksgiving-dinners.jpg As you are celebrating Thanksgiving with your family and friends tomorrow, keep in mind what Joyce Meyer says: “Go home, and let all your relatives off the potter’s wheel. You are not the potter!”

Relax. Have a great day. Watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)

or Miracle on 34th Street (1947).

Count your blessings. Life is good.

Don’t look so surprised!

Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God!
He, whose Word cannot be broken,
Formed thee for His own abode;
On the Rock of Ages founded,
What can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
Thou mayst smile at all thy foes.

–John Newton, Anglican Hymn

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November 17, 2017

Friday? Oh hell yes

by chuckofish

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The end of another week. After a big work event today, I will be ready for a low-key weekend and a tall glass of wine tonight.

As it is November and we are approaching Thanksgiving with alarming rapidity, I have been thinking about gratitude. I am grateful for and proud of my scholarly academic relatives, including daughter #2 who just had her first scholarly article published in a scholarly journal: “Sentimentalism and Secularism in Pierre” in Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies. (I cannot even spell “sentimentalism”…spellcheck corrected me.)

She has been working diligently to finish her dissertation and we are praying hard for her. She won’t be home for Thanksgiving, but we’ll be thinking of her and looking forward to seeing her at Christmas.

I am also grateful for Dierbergs Market which will be cooking our Thanksgiving turkey for us.

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I’m sure they will do a heck of a job. I will be doing my best to rustle up my cheesy potato casserole and open a can of cranberry sauce ee99e6f9-eb1a-430d-a68d-0558cefba577_1.402270de716c2fe121299c317d2d79cc

and pop some crescent rolls in the oven.

Screen Shot 2017-11-17 at 6.27.35 AM I will be counting on others to bring the rest. I am grateful for the ten adults who are coming and for the two wee babes who will join us at the table.

Did someone say cranberry sauce?

So this weekend I will be readying the house for overnight guests (daughter #1 and my nephew Tim from Indiana) and the dining room for the feast. I am grateful for the opportunity to do this. Time to get out the china and the crystal and the festive tablecloth. Time to iron the napkins and arrange the centerpiece.

I am looking forward to our annual viewing of Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) on Thanksgiving, so tonight my movie pick is for something else from the John Candy/Steve Martin oeuvre: Uncle Buck (1989) or The Great Outdoors (1988); Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)–something along those lines that will help us get in the holiday state of mind.

Also, this obit for a flyover collector was interesting.

Have a great weekend!

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February 16, 2017

A February face

by chuckofish

“Why, what’s the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”
– William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

Cheer up. February is not so bad.

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It is a good month to go to the art museum of your choice…

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…or to a flea market…

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…or to watch old movies…

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…or to study scripture…

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…to have a hot toddy before bed like Mark Twain…

And, oh, hey…

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The Cards are back on the field.

Thank you, Instagram, for the pictures. Have a great Thursday! And put a smile on that February face.

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January 5, 2017

A few nice things

by chuckofish

Well, we ended up with quite a few Christmas cards this year, and isn’t that nice?

Another nice thing is that daughter #1 organized all the CDs while she was home! Daughter #1 likes to play DJ with our collection and we did have at least one dance party–so the CDs were in quite a state of disarray, as you can imagine. Anyway, this is a huge job, which entails reuniting the CDs with their correct cases and then putting them back in the right section on the shelf. Awesome.

Last night I took down the Christmas trees so that I could drag them out to the curb for pick-up today. This weekend I’ll put everything away. And take down the festive outdoor lights.

Not so nice, but inevitable.

It would be nice to toast Robert Duvall tonight on his 86th birthday and watch one of his many great movies. Truly the list is amazing! He was in everything from To Kill a Mockingbird, to True Grit, MASH, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Network, The Natural, Sling Blade, The Apostle, Lucky You, and on and on…What a career! I think it might be time for a little Lonesome Dove.

“The older the violin, the sweeter the music.”

Have a nice day!

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December 21, 2016

You’ll be doin’ all right, with your Christmas of white, But I’ll have a blue, blue Christmas

by chuckofish

Today is Blue Christmas, also called the Longest Night in the Western Christian tradition, a day in the Advent season marking the longest night of the year. On this day, some churches hold a church service that honors people who have lost loved ones in that year.

I was unaware of this “tradition,” but it is easy to understand how easy it is for people to get especially sad at this time of year. Those long, dark nights are so depressing and we miss our loved ones. Sigh.

Listening to Elvis sing “Blue Christmas” would make us all feel better, but WordPress would not let me upload video, so you will just have to imagine him singing in your head.

Another way to cheer up is to stare at your tree and look at all the pretty ornaments that you have collected over the years. Sometimes this leads to thinking about how ancient you have become (along with your “vintage” ornaments) but c’est la vie.

It may also bring you joy to get busy wrapping all those presents you have gotten for friends and family, because, you know, it is better to give than to receive.

On the other hand, I have given some real flops (or “boners” as we call them) in my day and that is always a depressing reality of Christmas. Expectations are always in the stratosphere around 12/25 and they are bound to be grounded at some point.

Well, try to “think positive” and count your blessings. Daughter #2 is keeping me company and my spirits up at work. And who doesn’t love a poinsettia?

Have a good Wednesday!

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November 3, 2016

Variations on a theme

by chuckofish

Photo courtesy of the Missouri Dept. of Conservation

“We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.”

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

We’ve quoted Bonhoeffer before on the subject of thankfulness, but can we ever say it often enough? Probably not. It is so central to our well-being.

November is a good month to take a look at the things for which we are thankful, so I plan to do that.

Meanwhile, here’s a poem by W.S. Merwin:

Thank you my life long afternoon
late in this spring that has no age
my window above the river
for the woman you led me to
when it was time at last the words
coming to me out of mid-air
that carried me through the clear day
and come even now to find me
for old friends and echoes of them
those mistakes only I could make
homesickness that guides the plovers
from somewhere they had loved before
they knew they loved it to somewhere
they had loved before they saw it
thank you good body hand and eye
and the places and moments known
only to me revisiting
once more complete just as they are
and the morning stars I have seen