home | dual personalities

November 19, 2019

“Teach me some melodious sonnet”*

by chuckofish

Lottie is sure styling in her fall ensemble complete with jean jacket…

Another lovely fall weekend has flown by. There are a lot of leaves on the ground now, but even more are still on the trees. We will be raking/vacuuming leaves ’til Christmas around here.

Over the weekend the OM and I hung my latest eBay purchase, about which I am very pleased. I like to peruse eBay, but I have found that most things are overpriced compared to what you can find at estate sales and at auction houses. Nevertheless, I continue to search, because I enjoy it and because sometimes something worthwhile turns up.

Recently I found a mirror with églomisé reverse painted panel, purported to be a Bucks County “Federal mirror with historic history. Originally owned by Ulysses S. Grant’s Great Aunt & Uncle, Benjamin Hough and Hannah (Simpson) Hough.” The seller had all the genealogical info.

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The mirror even has a brass plate dated August 24, 1791, the day Benjamin and Hannah married.

Well, hold the phone, Hannah is our great-great-great-great grandmother!

The price was too high so I put the mirror on my watch list and waited. Soon the seller made me an offer which I thought was reasonable and I bought it! We had a nice email exchange; she was happy to see it return to its family. She packed it well and it came to me unscathed.

Well, I am pretty excited to have this piece of Hough family decorative art back in my family!

The boy and the wee babes came over for spaghetti Sunday night (daughter #3 had work to do on her side-hustle/Etsy shop). The wee laddie was in a bad mood when he arrived (he had not been allowed to bring his steam shovel) and he proceeded to act badly, which finally landed him for the first time in Mamu’s Time Out. He got over it.

This was not his time out chair! He was just keeping those micro cars from Lottie…

The babes are getting to be such little people with distinct personalities now that they are approaching three years of age! They really are nutballs.

IMG_4177 3.jpeg Well, here’s a great old hymn for Tuesday. We sing it in the Episcopal Church but with an organ accompaniment. However, I do like this rendition.

“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” is a hymn written by the 18th century pastor and hymnnodist Robert Robinson in 1757, but some things never get old.

Have a great week!

5 Comments

November 15, 2019

What’s playing at the Roxy?*

by chuckofish

Oh boy. It’s Friday.

It’s been an exciting week in Missouri. We had a snow day and a meteorite fell to earth.

In the Episcopal Church we celebrated the lesser feast day of Charles Simeon (1759–1836) who was an English evangelical clergyman. This article by John Piper is interesting.

We all need help here. We are surrounded by, and are part of, a society of emotionally fragile quitters. The spirit of the age is too much in us. We need to spend time with the kind of people whose lives prove there is another way to live. Scripture says, be “imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12). So I want to hold up for us the faith and patient endurance of Charles Simeon for our inspiration and imitation.

And Disney gave us fair warning… Screen Shot 2019-11-14 at 2.59.05 PM.png

Thanks, Disney.

And FYI today is America Recycles Day (ARD)! It is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle and buy recycled products. My mother was a recycler. It just seemed logical to her. And her puritan soul did not like waste. I would have to agree. As you know, I buy a lot of recycled items–they’re called antiques! (Vintage is okay too…)

My weekend will be a quiet one and that is okay with me. I will catch up with my reading…

…do some “desk work” and putter around…

The usual.

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How about you?

*Guys and Dolls

5 Comments

November 12, 2019

Mish mosh*

by chuckofish

We had our first snow of the season yesterday and, in fact, I had to call off afternoon classes and send everyone home early. It is always a bit weird, though, when it snows and most of the leaves are still on the trees. The temperature dropped 40 degrees from what it had been over the sunny weekend.

Daughter #1 came into town on Friday because she was part of the big Veterans Day doings at the Soldiers Memorial downtown on Saturday.

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Members of the Scottish-American Military Society

I liked what Chris Pratt wrote about his older brother, a vet, on his Instagram:

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And this great picture of the Queen with her poppies. She remembers.

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scottmeachamwood @Instagram

I had my last chemo treatment on Friday and it was a surprisingly emotional experience to ring that bell and say goodbye to all those nice people who work in the Cancer Center at Missouri Baptist Hospital.

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Well, on to the next phase.

Over the weekend I re-read Delano Ames’ Corpse Diplomatique which I thoroughly enjoyed. Jane and Dagobert Brown are very diverting amateur sleuths and Jane is always saying things like:

I glanced at him witheringly and risked no comment. But Henry did not wither readily.

And we watched The Ten Commandments (1956). It is hard to beat Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner together in a movie.

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Be still my heart.

This movie holds up remarkably well and the pre-CG special effects–the parting of the Red Sea in particular–are impressive. I will also note that Yul Brynner was also in the King and I and Anastasia in 1956. Seriously–wow–quelle year.

The wee babes came over Sunday night for dinner, but no one took any pictures!

Today I will remind you is the 359th anniversary of the day John Bunyan was arrested and taken into custody for preaching in a Puritan meeting house in England. He was convicted as a dissenter and spent 12 years in jail. While there, he began a book–The Pilgrim’s Progress.

“Mr. Worldly-Wiseman is not an ancient relic of the past. He is everywhere today, disguising his heresy and error by proclaiming the gospel of contentment and peace achieved by self-satisfaction and works. If he mentions Christ, it is not as the Savior who took our place, but as a good example of an exemplary life. Do we need a good example to rescue us, or do we need a Savior?”

No surprise that it is still in print and read all over the world. It’s a story that never gets old. My denomination is full of Worldly-Wisemen, that’s for sure.

Stay warm and drive safely.

*Yiddish for a motley assortment of things

3 Comments

November 5, 2019

Praise God from whom all blessings flow

by chuckofish

We thank thee, O God, for the saints of all ages; for those who in times of darkness kept the lamp of faith burning; for the great souls who saw visions of larger truths and dared to declare them; for the multitude of quiet and gracious souls whose presence has purified and sanctified the world; and for those known and loved by us, who have passed from this earthly fellowship into the fuller life with thee. Accept this our thanksgiving through Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Redeemer, to whom be praise and dominion for ever.

–Kendall Harmon, A prayer for All Saints Day

So Halloween and All Saints Day have come and gone and we are on the downward slide to the end of the year! Zut alors, the year has sped by.

We had a lovely weekend visit from daughter #2 all the way from Maryland. She went with me to my weekly chemo session…

Screen Shot 2019-11-04 at 4.30.56 PM.png …and we managed to do some of our favorite things as well. Daughter #1 joined us from mid-MO and we went to estate sales…

…and went out to lunch. We frolicked with the wee babes…

We watched Spy (2015), which we still think is hilarious,

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and a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie starring Jodie Sweetin which was part of the Countdown to Christmas. (Yikes.)

Screen Shot 2019-11-04 at 4.39.23 PM.png And daughter #2 made her famous macaroni and cheese. In addition, we gave each other foot spa treatments and sat around and talked and talked. And went to bed early.

Nothing better, am I right?

It was a good start to November which is a month when we like to consider how much we have to be thankful for, including these guys.

Enjoy your week!

6 Comments

October 29, 2019

“Hold the selfies, put the Gram away/ Get your family, y’all hold hands and pray”*

by chuckofish

On Friday I received my copy of Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout in the mail. It was a quick read and I finished it in a day. It was a big disappointment. All of the reviews I have read have been raves, so I am in a distinct minority it seems.

Olive, Again is a sequel to Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, which I loved. I have liked most of her books and almost all of them are tied up in this one. Indeed, in a series of linked short stories, we find out what happens to all those Maine characters who have populated her books. What we find out, basically, is that they are all frightened and lonely people with no spiritual life. It is a bleak world where nothing has much meaning. At the end of the book, Olive writes (spoiler alert!), “I do not have a clue who I have been. Truthfully, I do not understand a thing.”

I could go on, but it is just kind of depressing, so why bother.

Anyway, despite reading this disappointing book, daughter # 1 and I got quite a lot done this weekend, tidying up the house for daughter #2’s visit this coming weekend. I even persuaded the OM to hang up a pair of new drapes in my office. I got them on Etsy.com and I think they look great.

We also watched Ghostbusters (1984) which I thought held up very well and is kind of a classic at this point.

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The scene at the beginning in the New York Public Library…

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reminded us of Lottie…LOL!

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“No human being would stack books like this.”

Meanwhile, the boy had a fine time at the wedding in Rye, New York.

There he is to the right of the bride

And now he is home again, home again, jiggety jig.

And now I am back to wondering what to read. Have a good week!

“I don’t myself think much of science as a phase of human development. It has given us a lot of ingenious toys; they take our attention away from the real problems, of course, and since the problems are insoluble, I suppose we ought to be grateful for distraction. But the fact is, the human mind, the individual mind, has always been made more interesting by dwelling on the old riddles, even if it makes nothing of them. Science hasn’t given us any new amazements, except of the superficial kind we get from witnessing dexterity and sleight-of-hand. It hasn’t given us any richer pleasures, as the Renaissance did, nor any new sins-not one! Indeed, it takes our old ones away. It’s the laboratory, not the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. You’ll agree there is not much thrill about a physiological sin. We were better off when even the prosaic matter of taking nourishment could have the magnificence of a sin. I don’t think you help people by making their conduct of no importance-you impoverish them. As long as every man and woman who crowded into the cathedrals on Easter Sunday was a principal in a gorgeous drama with God, glittering angels on one side and the shadows of evil coming and going on the other, life was a rich thing. The king and the beggar had the same chance at miracles and great temptations and revelations. And that’s what makes men happy, believing in the mystery and importance of their own little individual lives. It makes us happy to surround our creature needs and bodily instincts with as much pomp and circumstance as possible. Art and religion (they are the same thing, in the end, of course) have given man the only happiness he has ever had.”
― Willa Cather, The Professor’s House

*Kanye West, “Closed on Sunday”

4 Comments

October 8, 2019

We are creatures, we are creatures of love*

by chuckofish

Over the weekend I put out some of my Halloween decorations…

Yes, fall has officially arrived, pumpkins and all.

I watched three Charlton Heston movies in honor of Chuck’s birthday: The Mountain Men (1980), The Buccaneer (1958) and Arrowhead (1953). Of the three I can recommend The Buccaneer, which co-stars Yul Brynner as the pirate Jean Lafitte.

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Heston plays Andrew Jackson.

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Historically speaking, I have no doubt that it is rife with error, but I enjoyed it.

Besides these Heston histrionics, it was a pretty quiet weekend. I puttered around and did some “desk work” and cleaned up my office.

The wee babes came over on Sunday night and the OM barbecued. Before they came over I had cleaned up daughter #2’s old LittleTikes dollhouse and put it out on our coffee table. Lottie ran in and exclaimed, “A dollhouse for Lottie!” The wee laddie was hot on her heels, though, and laid claim to the dollhouse as well. We had to assign the 2nd floor to Lottie and the first floor to the bud (to be used as a garage for his cars and trucks).

Anyway, a good time was had by all.

Here are some bonus pictures of the wee babes on an outing with their parents to the Eckert’s Fun Farm in Millstadt, IL on Saturday. They had a a super fun time and picked/ate a lot of apples.

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Life is good. Enjoy your Tuesday!

*Talking Heads

3 Comments

October 1, 2019

Walking along in the changing-time

by chuckofish

Last Sunday was the Pedal the Cause bicycle event which the boy participated in for the third year, riding 20 miles in the PTC Classic. It was very hot.

I did not go this year, because there is a little too much walking involved, but I was thinking of him and proud of him per usual.

My weekend was quiet. Daughter #1 was home and accompanied me to my chemo treatment, along with the boy who comes with me every Friday. I am very grateful to have such support! We stopped at Chik-fil-a on the way home. Then the boy went to work and daughter #1 went to Ikea and I went to bed.

I read a lot of Longmire.

I hung up a new wreath (from Etsy) because fall is here.

I have always loved those “Chinese Lanterns,” don’t you? One of these days I’m gong to try growing my own.

News flash: not only is fall here, but it is October! Zut alors!

“When they turned off, it was still early in the pink and green fields. The fumes of morning, sweet and bitter, sprang up where they walked. The insects ticked softly, their strength in reserve; butterflies chopped the air, going to the east, and the birds flew carelessly and sang by fits.

They went down again and soon the smell of the river spread over the woods, cool and secret. Every step they took among the great walls of vines and among the passion-flowers started up a little life, a little flight.

‘We’re walking along in the changing-time,’ said Doc. ‘Any day now the change will come. It’s going to turn from hot to cold, and we can kill the hog that’s ripe and have fresh meat to eat. Come one of these nights and we can wander down here and tree a nice possum. Old Jack Frost will be pinching things up. Old Mr. Winter will be standing in the door. Hickory tree there will be yellow. Sweet-gum red, hickory yellow, dogwood red, sycamore yellow.’ He went along rapping the tree trunks with his knuckle. ‘Magnolia and live-oak never die. Remember that. Persimmons will all get fit to eat, and the nuts will be dropping like rain all through the woods here. And run, little quail, run, for we’ll be after you too.’

They went on and suddenly the woods opened upon light, and they had reached the river. Everyone stopped, but Doc talked on ahead as though nothing had happened. ‘Only today,’ he said, ‘today, in October sun, it’s all gold—sky and tree and water. Everything just before it changes looks to be made of gold.’

“The Wide Net”
― Eudora Welty

Have a golden week.

3 Comments

September 27, 2019

Three notes and the truth

by chuckofish

So I don’t know about you, but for the last two weeks I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ newest 16-hour documentary, Country Music, as it premiered on PBS.

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It was 90% pretty great. The first episode and the last episode seemed a bit tacked on and the narrative muddled, but the rest of it, which was pure history, was wonderful.

I learned a lot and I was reminded of a lot I had forgotten. I especially enjoyed the commentary by Marty Stuart, Dwight Yoakam, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Brenda Lee, and Ricky Skaggs. It was a treat to see them.

I was not brought up on country music. In our house we listened to classical music and broadway musicals. We had some Kingston Trio, Harry Belafonte and Tijuana Brass records. Our older brother bought Beatles records and Bob Dylan records, but when he learned to play the guitar, he branched out quite a bit. Our mother never really approved of his interest in country artists and didn’t understand why he would try to sing like Jimmie Rodgers. But through him I became acquainted with Doc Watson, Bill Monroe and a host of bluegrass and country musicians.

Years later, when my own children were little, we started listening to country radio in the car (better, I thought, than the Backstreet Boys) and we became fans. We even traveled to Nashville several times and went to the Grand Ole Opry! It was all great fun and my children learned something about a whole other great segment of the country.

And it was great fun to go down memory lane, so to speak, with Ken Burns.

Here’s cousin Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66Uu1B6O3HE

You don’t know me, but you don’t like me/ You say you care less how I feel/ But how many of you that sit and judge me/ Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

That just says it all, right?

Anyway, if you didn’t watch the documentary, take a look. I’m sure it can be found at PBS or streaming somewhere soon.

Have a good weekend. I think it will be a rainy one here and, therefore, probably a quiet one. Maybe we’ll get out out the old CDs and listen to some Johnny Cash. Sounds like a plan…

2 Comments

September 20, 2019

“Scars make better stories than tattoos”*

by chuckofish

So another week comes to an end. It’s Fri-yay!

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I will be taking it easy this weekend, finishing Land of Wolves by Craig Johnson. Walt Longmire is back in Wyoming (where he belongs) and all the old characters are there with him. 👍 I am enjoying it very much and trying not to read it too fast.

I’ll probably watch some baseball–the Cards are playing the Cubs. Everyone here in STL is sort of cautiously optimistic as the Cards are still in first place as the playoffs approach. We’ll hope for the best.

Since today is the birthday of Sophia Loren (she’s 85!), we will toast her and watch one of her movies, my favorites being Houseboat (1958) with Cary Grant

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and Legend of the Lost (1957) with John Wayne

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…which both feature worthy co-stars.

And who can forget when she shared the joy with Roberto Benigni when Life is Beautiful won Best Foreign Film at the Oscars in 1999?

A great moment indeed.

And here is some wee babe goodness to tide you over…

Have a good weekend!

*Craig Johnson

3 Comments

September 17, 2019

“I simply gotta march/ My heart’s a drummer”*

by chuckofish

We had a beautiful day for our local Greentree Parade on Saturday.

Vrooom, vrooom!

The wee laddie got quite a kick out of all the army trucks and tractors etc…

And Lottiebelle made the round of laps…

After the parade we went home for Episcopal soufflé and Prosecco. Daughter #1 didn’t want birthday cake so we had donuts… IMG_3241 2.JPG The wee laddie approved.